liii 




THE ISLE OF THE SHAMROCK 



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A Knitter on the Highway 



THE ISLE 



OF THE SHAMROCK 




WRITTEN AND 
ILLUSTRATED BY 

CLIFTON JOHNSON 



Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

New York McMI 

LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 



Copyright, igoi 

by The Macmillan Company 



■xwTTiBRARVOF 

CCMGRE^S 
Two Cor.ub Rect.-ED 

OCT. 24 190' 

COP-'SIQUT 6NTBV 

LASS Cl- '^'^c. N 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

is hereby made to Z'j^^ 
New England Magazine, 
The Outlook, The Interior, 
Woman' s Home Companion, 
The Household, Farm and 
Home, The Springfield 
Republican, and the 
New York Evetwig Post, 
in which periodicals several 
chapters included in this 
' : * volume were first published. 



Eledrotyped 

and 

Printed 

at the 

Norwood Press 

Norwood, Afass, 






Contents 



I. The Castle of Eloquence 

II. A Medieval Brotherhood 

III. The Lakes of Killarney 

IV. A Mountain Climb 
V. In the Golden Vale 

VI. An Irish Writer and her Home 

VII. The Highlands of Donegal . 

VIII. Peasant Life in Connemara 

IX. Jaunting-car Journeys . 

X. An Island on the Wild West Coast 

XI. A Bogland Schoolmaster 

XII. The Giant's Causeway 



Page 
I 

II 

26 

54 
73 
95 
108 
140 
170 
194 
208 
234 




.^ 



""i'.^gi^ 



List of Illustrations 



Page 



A Knitter on the Highway 


• 


Frontispiece 


Bogland Haystacks . 


. 


ix 


A Shillalah of the Type known as a " 


Kippeen " 






xii 


Looking on . 


. 






I 


Blarney Castle 


. 






3 


Picnickers .... 


• 






5 


Roadside Geese 


• 






lO 


One of the Elders of the Monastery 


. 






1 1 


Hanging out the Clothes . . , 


. I 






12 


The Monks' Burial Place 


• 






H 


A Schoolroom Corner 


. 






21 


Coming in from the Fields 


. 






25 


On a Killarney Street 


1 . • 






26 


The Upper Lake . . . , 


• • 






29 


Muckross Abbey 


> 






33 


A Town Byway 


• « 






37 



List of Illustrations 



An Able-bodied Beggar . 

A Farmyard Pump . 

Browsing on the Bog 

A Mountain Peasant Woman and her Creel 

Going to Market . 

A Dwindling Haystack . 

An Upland Cottage . 

At the Threshold . 

Dispensers of Charity 

A Farm in the Golden Vale 

By the Kitchen Fireside . 

Work in a Potato Field . 

Farmyard Ducks 

On the Way to Town 

Water from the Brook 

A Pedler of Distillery Waste 

Waiting to be hired 

Hungry 

The Home of an Irish Writer 

Hearthside Comfort in a Bogland Hotel 

Drogheda — An Old Town Gate 

Carrying Manure to the Fields . 

Carding Wool 

Spinning with the Great Wheel . 

The Haymakers 

Covering the Seed in a Field sown to Oats 



List of Illustrations 



XI 



The Usual Substitute for a Baby Carriage 

Mowing .... 

The Humblest Home in Ireland 

Harvest Time 

Getting out Peat 

An Inspector of Streets 

Journeying on Foot 

A Country Church . 

Making a Hay Rope 

A Jaunting Car 

A Class in the Schoolyard 

The Monks' Fishing House 

Cong Marketplace . 

Stony Land . 

On an Errand 

A Weather-proof Stack of Oats 

Goats on an Achill Hillslope 

The Cathedral Cliffs 

Tourists on a Long Car . 

A House with a Turf Roof 

On the Way to School 

A Class in Reading 

The Teacher at Home 

The Schoolmaster's Wife . 

A Hayfield . 

Luckawn National Schoolhouse 



Page 

140 
142 
144 

158 
165 
169 

170 
172 
179 

183 
186 
190 

194 
197 
200 
204 
207 
208 
21 I 
215 
218 
222 
233 



Xll 



List of Illustrations 



The Round Tower at Antrim . 

The Giant's Causeway . 

A Gatherer of Winkles and Limpets 

The Kitchen Dresser 

Spring Flowers 

The Evening Meal at the Cottage Door 



Page 

234 
241 
245 
252 
256 
258 



Introductory Note 

In one of his earlier volumes John Burroughs 
tells of a Frenchman who visited England with the 
intention of writing a book about that country. For 
a long period he continued to observe and collect 
material. During the first weeks his enthusiasm 
over his project was unbounded ; a year passed and 
he still thought of writing a book, but was not so 
sure about it ; and after a residence of ten years his 
doubts as to his ability of adequately handhng the 
subject had so grown that he abandoned the scheme 
altogether. Mr. Burroughs's comment is that, " in- 
stead of furnishing an argument against writing out 
one's first impressions of a country, the experience 
of the Frenchman shows the importance of doing it 
at once. The sensations of the first day are what 
we want, — the first flush of the traveller's thought 
and feeling before his perceptions and sensibilities 
become cloyed or blunted, or before he in any way 
becomes a part of that which he would describe." 



xlv Introductory Note 

This defines very forcibly, I think, the source of 
whatever merit may have been attained by the present 
volume, or by its predecessors on England and France. 
The view is from the outside, and has both the faults 
and virtues of such a view. It is a record of first 
impressions and of the pleasure in things novel and 
unexpected which never comes but once. As such I 
finish it, trusting that I may have succeeded in con- 
veying to others something of the charm and interest 
that these scenes and incidents had for me. 

CLIFTON JOHNSON. 



THE ISLE OF THE SHAMROCK 



The Isle of the Shamrock 



THE CASTLE OF ELOQUENCE 




I 



T was the first gray of a May 
morning, and the coasting steamer 
on which I had taken passage the 
day before at Plymouth, in southern 
England, was sliding along up the 
quiet of the river Lee toward Cork. 
The air was chilly, and the night mists 
still lingered in the hollows of the 
green landscape and floated in filmy 
wraiths over the surface of the water. 
All the little steamer's passengers were 
astir and were watching the scene from 
^^ the upper deck. The most inter- 
"^ ested spectators among us were 
a score of Irish boys from her 
Majesty's ship Renown, going home for a month's 
leave of absence after a two years' cruise In the West 
Indies. They wore loose, blue uniforms, and flat 



2 The Isle of the Shamrock 

caps with their ship's name on the bands, and they 
carried their belongings tied up in colored handker- 
chiefs or squares of calico. To them the low-lying 
shores between which our boat was moving were super- 
latively beautiful. They eagerly picked out familiar 
points as we passed them, and declared that altogether 
this was the finest sight they had seen in their lives. 
When we at length approached the dock, their im- 
patience to land was such that as soon as we came 
within jumping distance they tossed their little bundles 
ashore and made flying leaps after them. The officers 
of the steamer declared the man-of-war lads were as 
bad as a menagerie of wild animals. Attempts to 
restrain them were wholly futile, and by the time the 
gang-plank was in position they had helter-skeltered 
off up the neighboring streets and alleys and were lost 
to view. 

I followed more leisurely and prosaically, and, after 
breakfasting, looked about the town. That I was in 
Ireland was plain from the start, for the brogue andj 
the peculiar piquancy of the faces were unmistakable. 
Then there were the women with shawls drawn over 
their heads, and the numerous beggars, and the bare- 
foot newsboys selling green-tinted papers, and there, 
was the omnipresent donkey-cart, and, scarcely less 
conspicuous, that other distinctively Irish vehicle, the 
jaunting-car, with the seats hung above the wheels. 



IV 




The Castle of Eloquence 3 

Some of the natives were no better than walking 
scarecrows, so dilapidated was their attire ; yet, as a 
whole, Cork is a city that shows evidence of a good 
deal of business prosperity. A rich farming region 
lies round about which reminds one of England. I 
saw something of this on a trip I made to Blarney 
Castle, eight miles distant, and would have seen more 
had I walked as I at first planned. But the day 
was too bright and warm for comfortable tramping, 
and I went instead by a convenient steam tram. 

Blarney town is a small manufacturing place. The 
castle, however, is well outside the village, in sur- 
roundings wholly rural, and the way thither is by a 
footpath and across a slight wooden bridge, spanning 
a swift, clean little river. The old fortress stands on 
a low hill, whence it looks down on a broad field from 
amid a grove of trees. This field is used as a public 
pleasure-ground, and rustic seats engird the bases of 
its noble oaks and elms, and a number of framework 
swings have been erected in the opens. 

The castle makes an imposing ruin, for the main 
structure has suffered little from the ravages of time 
except that the roof and the wooden floors have fallen. 
You can climb winding stairs and follow devious pas- 
sages into vaulted chambers and chilly cells to your 
heart's content. All this is very romantic ; but it is 
worth while remembering that, in spite of its historic 



4 The Isle of the Shamrock 

charm and its strong appeal to the imagination, the 
castle is a relic of an age of barbarism when the 
country was divided among many petty chiefs, each 
distrustful of the other, even when on terms of nomi- 
nal friendship. These dwellings of the chieftains 
were built primarily for defence. They were dark, 
damp, and cold, and their thick-walled gloom must 
have been decidedly more prisonlike than home- 
like. Everything in their construction speaks of a 
time of universal insecurity, and the knightly chiv- 
alry attributed to the period is not nearly so charac- 
teristic as its wanton fighting, robbery, and cruelty. 
I could not help feeling therefore that Blarney was 
better as a peaceful ruin than it was in its proud 
completeness devoted to its original purposes. 

The castle is many stories high, and in the topmost 
cornice is the far-famed Blarney Stone — that powerful 
talisman which you have only to kiss to be endowed 
with eloquence for life. But as the vertical measure- 
ment of the cornice is about six feet and its projection 
beyond the main wall fully three feet, and as the Stone 
is at the bottom of the cornice, the kissing is not as 
easily accomplished as might be. Formerly it was 
customary to lower the candidate for eloquence over 
the rampart, head foremost. A friend clung to either 
heel, but at such a dizzy height the proceeding smacked j 
so seriously of danger that of late years the parapet 



I 




Picnickers 



The Castle of Eloquence 5 

has been guarded against further attempts of the sort 
by a row of great spikes. 

The Stone Eloquent at one time dropped out. It 
was, however, promptly restored, and is now fixed in 
place by two heavy iron rods that clasp it to the cor- 
nice. Were it not that the Blarney Stone comes oppo- 
site one of the frequent gaps which alternate with the 
out-thrust of the supporting stones of the cornice, it 
would be practically inaccessible. As things are, the 
only way to bestow the mystic kiss is to get down on 
your knees, double up like a jack-knife, and crane your 
neck across the yawning vacancy. I regarded the 
Stone with interest and wished I was more of an acro- 
bat, or more courageous ; but I was deterred by that 
lofty hole, which, though not much more than a foot 
broad and four long, was still plenty large enough to 
fall through, and I decided to get along without the 
eloquence. 

The story of the Stone dates back to the middle 
of the fifteenth century, when Cormac MacCarthy the 
Strong, a descendant of the ancient kings of Munster, 
and builder of the fortress, chanced one day to save an 
old woman from drowning. In her gratitude the old 
woman offered Cormac a golden tongue which should 
have the power to influence men and women, friends 
and foes, as he willed. She told him to mount the 
keep and kiss a certain stone in the wall five feet below 



6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

the gallery running around the top. He followed her 
directions, and obtained all the fluent persuasiveness 
she had promised. The tale of this new accomplish- 
ment of Cormac's and its miraculous origin spread, 
and the Blarney Stone has been drawing pilgrims 
to itself ever since. 

It is said that all the innumerable MacCarthys who 
swarm in the barony are more or less descended from 
Cormac the Strong, and that even the meanest day 
laborer of the name considers himself the rightful 
owner of the domain of Blarney. They have never 
become reconciled to the fact that it was confiscated 
by the government, though two centuries have passed 
since the authorities took it in charge and conveyed it 
by sale to other hands. Tradition declares that the 
treasures of the MacCarthy family are sunk under the 
waters of the Lake of Blarney, which sleeps in a hollow 
a quarter of a mile from the castle. The secret hiding- 
place is supposed to be known to only three Mac- 
Carthys in each generation, and the treasures will be 
recovered the day that one of the family enters into 
possession of the ancestral estate. 

While I was on the highest walls of the castle a party 
of small girls came clambering up from below. They 
were laden with baskets and bundles, and were evi- 
dently on a picnic. I had first noticed them on the 
green before the castle, where my attention was attracted 



The Castle of Eloquence 7 

to the group by a sharp explosion from one of their 
baskets. There was instant consternation, the basket 
was hastily opened, and a bottle of lemonade was 
revealed fizzing itself to waste. To stop the foaming 
overflow of the precious fluid they drank it, and thus 
to some degree restored their equanimity. 

When the party had finished the ascent of the wind- 
ing, irregular flights of stone stairs to the top of the 
great castle walls, they at once approached me and 
asked where the Blarney Stone was. I pointed it out, 
and, one by one, they crept up and hung on to the 
parapet while they took a scared, distant look, appalled 
by the Stone's uncanny position, so far above the earth 
and separated from them by that abysmal gap. 

" Mother of God, and is that it ! " exclaimed the 
oldest girl; and then the smallest of the squad, a child 
of four in a white sunbonnet, began to cry. 

This overtaxed the emotions of the others, and threw 
them into a panic, and off they went with ejaculations 
and chatter enough for a hundred. But when they 
reached the stairway they paused and looked down 
into the vacancy where the roof and wooden floors had 
fallen and long ago mouldered away and entirely dis- 
appeared. Awed by the vast emptiness of the space 
before them, one of the girls turned to me with the 
inquiry, " And where is the castle, sir ? " 

" It is right here," I responded. 



8 The Isle of the Shamrock 

" Sure, then," said she, quickly, " this is no castle, 
sir — this is just a hole with some walls around it." 

Soon after this ingenuous company of picnickers 
had gone, I descended also, and overtook them in a 
path under the castle walls. They had been brought 
to a stop by another mishap to their provisions. A 
basket cover had come off, and the bread and butter 
and cakes had gone flying all over the premises. 
Every soul took part in an excited scramble to the 
rescue, and I arrived just as the last of the food was 
being gathered up and crammed back into the basket. 
There were no lamentations. Apparently it never 
occurred to them that any harm had been done. 

They had seen all they wished to of the castle, 
though they declared they liked it very well except 
for " thim horrid stairs," and the Blarney Stone, which 
they "didn't think nothing at all of" Now they 
were betaking themselves to the green, where they 
piled into the swings, and all talked together all the 
time. 

I sat down near by, and was treated like an old 
acquaintance. Where was I from? they asked — 
" America ? Lord save us ! " ejaculated the oldest of 
the party, " and do you know Katie Donovan, sir ? 
She is me cousin, and she is in America, sir." 

They were much disappointed that I did not know 
Katie Donovan. At their request I pushed them in 



The Castle of Eloquence 9 

the swings for a few minutes. They were very appre- 
ciative. "It is fine — it is exquishite, sir!" they said. 

So grateful were they that they let loose one of their 
bottles of lemonade into a glass for me, and they 
brought me a plum cake and a knife to cut it, and 
requested me to take as much as I liked. They also 
brought me some sweet biscuits and candies. In their 
generosity they would even take the candies out of 
their mouths and offer them to me. Finally they 
gave me an orange. I was afraid they were robbing 
themselves, and tried to refuse, but they insisted with 
the affirmation that they had more than they could eat, 
and if I didn't take it, they would have to throw it 
away, so they would ! 

Mamie, the youngest, could dance, they said. " Her 
sister sings the tune, and she dances — indeed she 
do!" 

Then Mamie was wheedled and her sister sang the 
tune, and the tot shuffled her feet and bobbed up and 
down. What a happy-go-lucky lot they were, and 
they were to stay all day and not return to Cork until 
seven in the evening ! 

When I bade the little Corkers good-by they wanted 
to know was I going to America now ? 

" No," I replied, " I shall go to Killarney first." 

"And who is that, sir?" asked one of the smaller 
girls. " I don't know him, sir ! " 



lO 



The Isle of the Shamrock 



I parted from them with real regret. What lively 
tongues, what quick imaginations, what racy wildness ! 
They had no need to kiss the Blarney Stone. 




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'""**'-Hlu 







MEDIEVAL BROTHERHOOD 

NE of my fellow-trav- 
ellers on my return 
journey by the steam 
tramway to Cork was a stout, 
red-faced Catholic priest whose 
breath was odorous of whiskey. 
He got out his prayer-book as soon as he had seated 
himself, made the sign of the cross, and began to read. 
I presently spoke to him, though with diffidence, and 
doubtful of the propriety of interrupting his spiritual 
— or was it spirituous? — meditations. But he 
turned to me affably, put his thumb into his prayer- 
book, and entered on an extended conversation. 

It appeared that his special hobby was the Irish 
language, than which he declared there was no finer in 



12 The Isle of the Shamrock 

existence. Did I speak it ? No ? Ah ! that was a 
pity, but I could learn it and I ought to begin at 
once ! His hopes of making me a proselyte appar- 
ently ran high, for at parting he gave me copies of 
two papers printed in his beloved Irish, and a soiled 
visiting card, accompanied by a cordial invitation to 
visit him in his country parish, where we could con- 
sider this linguistic topic more at leisure. There are 
many enthusiasts like him in Ireland, who are desirous 
of saving the language from extinction. But it is 
probably doomed, though strenuous efforts are being 
made to have it adopted as a regular course in the 
government schools. Barely a sixth of the population 
is now able to speak the ancient vernacular, and even 
this small fraction can use English, too, in all save 
very exceptional cases. 

The thing which interested me most in my talk with 
the priest was his mention of the fact that, not fifty 
miles distant, on one of the lower ridges of the Knock- 
mealldown Mountains, overlooking the valley of the 
Blackwater, dwelt a community of Irish monks. They 
have separated themselves from the world with all its 
turmoil and jealousies and follies, and on the quiet 
of this lonely mountain-top they spend their allotted 
days in prayer and in peaceful pastoral employment. 
The priest said that many well-to-do persons resorted 
to the monastery annually to spend a few days and 




Hanging out the Clothes 



A Medieval Brotherhood 13 

"be alone with their Creator," and he added that the 
monks had a school there which was not surpassed 
anywhere. His regard for the monks was unbounded, 
and, attracted by his ardent description of their vir- 
tues and their peculiar habits of life, I determined to 
make a pilgrimage to this community among those 
curiously named mountains. 

I reached Cappoquin, the railroad station nearest 
the monastery, in the middle of a warm May after- 
noon. Mt. Melleray, the home of the monks, was 
three miles back among the hills ; and to fortify myself 
for the walk thither I went into one of the little Cap- 
poquin shops to invest in a few sweet-cakes for a 
lunch. The woman behind the counter had my 
purchase partly wrapped up when another woman 
from the rear of the shop called out, " Stop ! I will get 
the gentleman some that are clean." 

She took the place of the first woman in waiting on 
me, and her kindness moved me to increase my pur- 
chase to the extent of two pennies worth of chocolate. 

"Ah, sir!" said she, regretfully, "my little boy 
has got at the chocolate and he has eaten it all — the 
gossoon ! We cannot keep it, he eats that much of it. 
He would eat a box a day — he would, sir!" 

But that I might not suffer in consequence of her 
boy's inroads on her stock in trade, she insisted on 
trotting off to a shop up-street, whence she soon 



14 The Isle of the Shamrock | 

returned with my chocolate wrapped in half a sheet 
of an old letter. 

From the village I went first across the fields by 
a footpath, then followed a narrow lane bordered much 
of the way by high banks and walls overgrown with 
furze full of yellow flower-clusters. Along the hori- 
zon, on ahead, loomed the blue, serrated ridges of the 
Knockmealldown Mountains, and presently, on one 
of their lesser, northern heights, I discerned the mon- 
astery. It consists of a good-sized group of substantial 
stone buildings with a slender-spired church in the 
midst. The quiet of the hamlet when I entered it 
savored of desertion, and I, recalling what I had heard 
of the strange opinions and life of its inhabitants, half 
fancied the place was bewitched, and was tempted 
to turn back. But the wide door of the main build- 
ing stood open and I went in. One of the monks 
— "the brother porter" was his official title — greeted 
me pleasantly and was my guide in a leisurely ramble 
through the buildings, and my instructor as to the 
ways of the community. He was a gray, elderly man, 
in a coarse, black, hooded gown. About his waist he 
wore a leather girdle, and on his feet white stockings 
and rude, low shoes. All the other monks were 
dressed in the same general style, except that cer- 
tain of them wore white gowns with black scapulas. 
These white-garbed monks were the elders, or, as 




The Monks' Burial Place 



A Medieval Brotherhood 15 

they were called among themselves, the "fathers" of 
the order. 

The institution in its origin dates back to 1833, 
when a group of Irish monks was expelled for politi- 
cal reasons from the Cistercian monastery at Mt. Mel- 
leray in France. They returned penniless to their 
native country, and a nobleman living in the valley of 
the Blackwater took pity on them and gave them a 
tract of wild land here among the hills. They at once 
set to work with their own hands to reclaim it. For 
many years the community was so poverty-stricken 
that it had a hard struggle for existence, but in time 
it grew prosperous and independent. The land, as 
the monks found it, was a barren heath full of stones. 
They laboriously dug out the stones, carted them ofF 
to be used on the roads or for building purposes, and 
made the ground productive by subsoiling. 

The task of reclaiming still goes on, and I saw one 
of the fields where the monks had been at work not 
long since. They had brought the stones to the sur- 
face in such quantities that the earth was hidden by 
them, and the field looked like a dumping-place of 
refuse from a quarry. It seemed impossible that such 
a field could be of any use for agriculture. Certainly, 
if the monks placed any value on their time, the labor 
involved must far exceed in cost the worth of the land 
when the process is completed. But I suppose they 



1 6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

rejoice in difficulties to overcome, and the hardship 
brings heaven nearer. 

About seventy members at present make up the 
Mt. Melleray brotherhood. It is not often there are 
so few, but the monastery has been depopulated by 
a recent exodus to establish a new colony. Several 
branches own this for their parent community, includ- 
ing one in the United States, at Dubuque, Iowa. 

The Cistercians were a very powerful order during 
the Middle Ages, and in the thirteenth century they 
had nearly two thousand abbeys in the various coun- 
tries of Europe. Among those in Britain were Tintern, 
Furness, and Melrose, familiar to tourists now as beau- 
tiful ruins. Prosperity proved fatal, for as the brother- 
hood waxed rich the monks became indolent and 
deteriorated morally, and the result was that the 
order speedily decayed and waned until only remnants 
were left. 

These Irish monks, with their stony land to subdue, 
and with the memory of their former poverty and 
struggle for existence still fresh, seem to be trying 
to realize the order's original simplicity. The main 
tenets of the religion, as exemplified by them, are a 
hermit-like separation from the rest of mankind, long- 
houred daily devotions, and strict habits of silence and 
humility. All personal wealth at the time of joining 
and all the products of the industry of individual 



A Medieval Brotherhood 17 

members are turned into the community coffers. 
Henceforth they work for the common good, and 
their thoughts dwell on things eternal, or are sup- 
posed to. They never speak save when it is abso- 
lutely necessary, and even then the ordinary members 
must first get the permission of one of the three 
superiors — the abbot, the prior, or the sub-prior. 
The usual method of communication is by signs, and 
words are only employed as a last resort. The only 
two members not bound by the rules of silence are 
the brother porter, who communicates with visitors, 
and the " procurator," or housekeeper, who is privi- 
leged to speak to any one when there is occasion. 

The monks pay no attention to visitors. The 
weakness of the flesh may result in a sidelong glance 
or two ; but, in theory, the world is naught to them, 
and so long as you do not actually interfere they 
go their appointed ways unconcerned whatever you 
may do. 

Most members join the order between the ages of 
twenty and forty. Candidates beyond two score sel- 
dom meet with favor, because it is believed that a man 
is by then too old and fixed in his habits and ideas to 
learn the ways of the brotherhood. They accept no 
one rashly or in haste. To begin with, the applicant 
stays for three days at the monastery as a guest. If 
satisfied with what he sees and learns in these three 



1 8 The Isle of the Shamrock 

days, he becomes a " postulant " for three months, and 
his partial adoption is symbolized by a cloak which 
he wears over his ordinary worldly garments. After 
three months' experience, if he continues desirous to go 
on, he dons a special habit, more monkly than he has 
worn hitherto, and for two years is a " novice," sharing 
much of the community life, but not yet taking part 
in all the exercises. At the end of that interval the 
man who still yearns for complete monkhood takes 
" simple vows " and enters on a final probationary 
period of three years. This completed, provided the 
monks are satisfied with the novitiate's character, and 
are convinced of his sincerity, he may take solemn 
vows and enter on the full duties and joys of the 
order. 

So far as possible the monks supply their own bodily 
needs — raise their own food, erect their own buildings, 
and do their own farmwork and housework, even to 
making bread and washing clothes. The last-named 
task is done by steam power, and is not as arduous an 
undertaking as it might be. The wash is hung out to 
dry on lines in a grassy area near the church. In one 
corner of this area is the monk's burying-ground, where 
are several high stone crosses commemorating deceased 
abbots, and numerous low iron crosses marking the 
resting-places of the humbler members of the brother- 
hood. 



A Medieval Brotherhood 19 

The monks make their own clothing and shoes, and 
they grow on their own sheep all the wool used in their 
garments. The only process consigned to outsiders 
in the transformation of the wool into clothing is the 
weaving. This is done in a neighboring mill, but the 
monks hope soon to run a loom on their own premises. 
Their greatest lack is skilled mechanics, and they are 
always glad to have such join their number. 

They have a large garden where they raise vegetables 
and small fruits, and in the fields they grow potatoes, 
oats, turnips, and mangels. For stock they own, in 
addition to the sheep already mentioned, a herd of 
cows and a number of horses. They are not able to 
do all the work of the place unaided, and they keep 
constantly employed about forty laborers whom they 
pay from nine to twelve shillings a week. Half a 
century ago wages in the region were only a sixpence 
a day ; but conditions have much improved since, and 
the peasantry are decidedly better fed, better clothed, 
and better housed. 

Practically everything raised is consumed on the 
place, and for income they depend on chance sums 
donated to them, on summer lodgers, and on their 
school, which rarely numbers less than one hundred, 
and which stands in high repute among such of the 
Catholic gentry as desire an ecclesiastical education for 
their sons. Besides these aristocratic pupils the monks 



20 The Isle of the Shamrock 

teach the ragged, barefooted children of the mountain ; 
but this is for charity, not gain. 

A considerable amount comes to the brotherhood 
from pious persons, residing both near and far, who 
send ten shillings or a pound when a relative dies, 
with the request that the holy men of the monastery 
may say high mass for the repose of the lost one's 
soul. Another source of income is reforming drunk- 
ards. The unfortunates are received into the monas- 
tery, and the salutary effect of the seclusion and the 
religious surroundings, together with the fact that their 
liquor is taken from them gradually, works a cure — 
at least for the time being. 

Two large buildings are reserved for guests, one for 
men and one for women, and in the summer the 
lodgers frequently number fifty or more. The few 
days or weeks spent at the monastery, with the ac- 
companying confessions and sacraments, the quiet, and 
the simple wholesome living, bring genuine spiritual 
refreshment to the devout Catholic, and many persons 
come year after year. There are Protestant visitors, 
too, but these usually are impelled by curiosity, though 
even among them are certain ones who have no other 
motive than the desire to retire from the world for a 
season. The monks make no charge for their ser- 
vices, and when guests go they pay for their board 
whatever they choose, be it little or much. 




A Schoolroom Corner 



A Medieval Brotherhood 21 

Two in the morning is the monks' time for rising, 
save on Sundays and holy days, when it is an hour 
earlier. As soon as they are up and dressed they file 
down from their dormitory to the church for matins. 
Religious exercises are held in the church at frequent 
intervals all day. Shortly after matins come lauds, 
at sunrise prime, at eight o'clock thirdst, at eleven 
sext, at two in the afternoon none, at five vespers, 
at eight compline, and then they retire. Not all 
can attend this whole list of eight services, for the 
monks are workers as well as prayers, and other 
duties keep some of them away from the church 
much of the day ; but every one is present at the 
first three and the last. 

Following the religious exercises in the small hours 
of the morning the monks pray privately and read 
and meditate until it is time for the sunrise service. 
After prime they listen to a chapter from the Bible 
and to an exhortation from the superior. At about 
seven o'clock they assemble for a "collation." It 
seemed to me they must by then have sharp appe- 
tites, after being up since one or two in the morning. 
The dining room, like all the monks' apartments, is 
immaculately clean and substantial in all its appoint- 
ments, yet at the same time is severely plain. It is 
a high, pillared room, appropriately dim, with a cruci- 
fix on the wall at the far end. On one side a lofty 



22 The Isle of the Shamrock 

pulpit, overhung by a sounding-board, rises well toward 
the ceiling, and around the borders of the apartment 
are lines of long, bare tables. When the monks have 
taken their places in the " refectory," with the abbot 
superior at the head of the table, they in unison say 
grace. Then they sit down on the benches along the 
walls and at a signal from the superior begin eating. 
The pulpit during the silent meals of the day is occu- 
pied by one of the monks, who reads to his brethren 
from Scriptures or from some approved religious work 
— a book of sermons or the lives of the saints. When 
the superior observes that all have finished eating, he 
signals again and the gowned company rises, says grace, 
and leaves the room. 

The morning collation consists of milk and six 
ounces of bread, brown or white as is preferred. 
Those who choose have butter with their bread, and, 
instead of milk, a few of the members substitute tea, 
cocoa, or even wine. The noon meal is the chief 
repast of the day. The allowance then is a pound of 
bread and a pint of milk, and there are potatoes and 
other vegetables, and frequently soup or macaroni. 
Indeed, except that the monks eat no meat, save when 
they are sick, they are free to partake of whatever their 
garden produces and whatever they can buy that is 
inexpensive. At six in the evening supper is served, 
the principal items in its bill of fare being oatmeal and 



A Medieval Brotherhood 23 

a portion of bread saved from the dinner allowance. 
On occasion a relish is added in the shape of celery, 
rhubarb, or gooseberries from the garden, or perhaps 
some preserves that the monks themselves have put 
up. From September 14th to Easter, however, this 
evening collation is omitted, but as during this pe- 
riod they retire to rest at seven o'clock, I think the 
added hour of sleep may somewhat alleviate the inner 
vacancy. 

Manual labor begins at half-past five in the morn- 
ing, when certain of the monks go to the barn to feed 
the stock and milk the cows. All the brotherhood 
are fond of open-air exercise, and the teachers and the 
father abbot, as well as the others, try to get out for 
a time each day, even if for no more than a half-hour 
digging stones from the land that is being reclaimed. 
For the field work their skirts are not wholly con- 
venient, and they usually take a reef in them, and with 
pins or strings fasten them up nearly to their knees. 

After the noonday meal the monks go to their cells 
to spend twenty or thirty minutes in praying, reading, 
or sleeping. In warmer climates this interval would 
be taken for a siesta as a matter of course, but few of 
these Irish monks care to sleep in the middle of the 
day. Their cells, each containing a narrow couch, are 
in an upper story along the sides of a long, high hall. 
They are simply little doorless sections separated by 



24 The Isle of the Shamrock 

slight partitions. There is just standing-room in them, 
no chair or surplus furniture ; and all are exactly alike, 
the father superior's being no better than those of the 
lesser members of the order. 

For reading the monks have a library of twenty-two 
thousand volumes to draw from. It is largely a reli- 
gious library, for they buy none of the current secular 
books. They, however, have all the classics and 
standard histories, poetry, and novels. They even 
admit infidel books that they may keep posted on the 
wiles of Satan, but such are kept under lock and key 
and are only read by special permission. 

The monks rarely go outside the boundaries of 
their own estate. Trading transactions in neighboring 
towns are intrusted to their hired help, and they them- 
selves travel only on ecclesiastical business and in 
obedience to orders. In short, the monks of Mt. 
Melleray are a community of religious recluses who 
are as unworldly as they well can be. I doubt if they 
take any newspapers or know anything about the 
movements of life outside their walls. But the brother 
porter was an exception. His connection with the 
world was kept up through his intercourse with 
visitors, and he took a lively interest in the affairs of 
the nations, and had many questions to ask. 

Just how much the monastery helps its inmates 
toward godliness, I am uncertain. It is retired — 



A Medieval Brotherhood 



25 



away from turmoil and many temptations ; yet in 
what 1 saw of the monks it seemed to me they still 
had our common human nature with all its earthiness. 
Probably they, like the rest of us, fall far short of 
their ideals ; for only the rarest natures, in monas- 
teries or out of them, attain to anything approaching 
unsullied spirituality. 



M...L J- ■■mi'' r^Mf .■''//■ -' • ' trn'^'t^;. 



-i[^i. 



^^S^'-'^m,' 



.\iV '».'.-'' 




G 



-*v^ 



Ill 



THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY 



r I "AHE Lakes of Killarney — 
■ there is something melt- 
ing and delicate about the 
phrase that draws one 
strangely. It has a mel- 
ody that charms with a 
vague suggestion of gen- 
tle, dreamy landscapes, 
peaceful waters, and mild 
blue mountains. 

I suppose when the 
imagination has dwelt 
long on the fascina- 
tion of a place 
beforehand, there is 
bound to be a cer- 
tain degree of dis- 
appointment in seeing the reality ; but at Killarney 
the combination of lakes and streams, mountains and 

26 




The Lakes of Killarney ly 

varied foliage, is so fine that even in one's fancy it 
could hardly be more attractive. The lakes are three 
in number, each with a character and beauty of its 
own, and the only serious fault I had to find was 
that they were too much shut away from the public 
by the bordering estates of the gentry. One of these 
estates — that of a Mr. Herbert — had, at the time 
of my visit, recently come on the market, and was the 
subject of a good deal of newspaper comment, both 
in Britain and America. The items and the headlines 
not infrequently gave the impression that the lakes 
themselves were to be sold, and that this single estate 
held them all within its boundaries. The fear was 
expressed that the domain would pass into the hands 
of speculators, and be exploited as a vulgar commer- 
cial show place, or, worse still, that it would be pur- 
chased by some aristocrat who would exclude outsiders 
altogether. Efforts were made to have the govern- 
ment buy the estate and convert it into a public park ; 
and when this project failed, the suggestion was offered 
that the Irish in America might unite in contributing 
the needful sum, and do themselves honor by turning 
the domain over to their homeland for a national 
pleasure-ground. 

The estate is hardly as vital as would be inferred 
from much that was published ; yet it includes nearly 
all of the middle lake and a considerable strip along 



28 The Isle of the Shamrock 

/ the east shore of the lower lake. I heard the laboring 
folk speak of Mr. Herbert as a good landlord and 
employer, and they all regretted his financial embar- 
rassment, and looked forward to a change of pro- 
prietors with misgiving. Whenever they mentioned 
his having " gone broke," I noticed they added the 
information that he had an American wife whom he 
had married for her beauty, wholly reckless of the fact 
that she did not possess wealth. It seemed to be 
taken for granted that such a match on the part of a 
British subject of the upper classes was very unusual 
and unwise, and the dismal sequel was held to be a 
natural consequence. 

The lakes lie in a basin between several mountain 
groups, and they convey an impression of permanence 
and of age coeval with that of the heights which over- 
look them. A native of the region, however, informed 
me there once were no Lakes of Killarney at all. Where 
they now are was just a low valley, and in the valley 
were farms and a town. Unluckily, one of the 
dwellers in the vale had a charmed well. Still, 
everything was all right if he kept it covered nights, 
and this he took great care to do. But late on a cer- 
tain evening, after the owner of the well had gone to 
bed, a neighbor visited it, drew a bucketful, and went 
away without restoring the cover. The next morning a 
great river was pouring out of the well, and the farms 




The Upper Lake 



The Lakes of Killarney 29 

and the town were fathoms deep under water. There 
they are to this day, and when conditions are favorable, 
the old-time houses of the vale can be clearly seen at 
the bottom of the lakes, and so can the charmed well. 
Into it runs one stream, and out of it runs another — 
at least, that was the story as it was told me. 

My acquaintance with the lakes began with an ex- 
tended walk along their eastern side. Killarney town, 
on their northern borders, was my starting point, and 
I continued to the opposite end of the group, ten 
miles southward. Around the large lower lake is a 
pleasant, alluvial country of gentle slopes, where the 
grass flourishes, and the trees grow spreading and 
stately. But of this I saw less than I could wish, for 
the ribbon of winding roadway which I followed was 
so hemmed in by the walls of the adjoining estates 
of the aristocracy, that I might almost as well have 
been in a tunnel. Not until the middle lake was half 
passed did I find freedom. Then the wayside walls 
dwindled and disappeared, and the road, instead of 
being crowded far back from the shore by the broad 
parks of the gentry, came down to the borders of 
the water. 

The landscape, meanwhile, had undergone a change, 
and was wrinkled into little hills that constantly grew 
more rugged, and the shade trees gave way to wild 
forest growths that had an almost tropical luxuriance. 



30 The Isle of the Shamrock 

There were beeches, elms, and oaks clad in their spring 
greens, and there were pines and drooping larches. 
Ivy vines crept up the tall tree trunks, and the 
ground was hidden by a tangle of dark, glossy holly 
and arbutus. I doubt if any woodland rivalling 
this in rich and varied profusion exists in all Britain. 
The forest, however, is not extensive, and after a 
few miles the trees are less lofty and less exuberant, 
and I found little left of the woods in the vicinity 
of the upper lake save stunted and infrequent patches 
growing among the rude gray crags at the foot of the 
mountain ridges. Where there was soil here, it was 
mostly a barren heath or a peaty bogland ; but in the 
rocky ravines were streams of crystal as refreshing as 
they were pellucid, and I could hear the pleasant sound 
of distant waterfalls. Best of all, the waste was wholly 
unfenced, and there was nothing to prevent my wan- 
dering through it at will, and getting all the changing 
views the region afforded. I enjoyed this thoroughly, 
and by the time I was ready to turn back I had con- 
cluded that the little upper lake, with its many islets 
and irregular shores and wild surroundings, was the 
most satisfying of the three. 

On all the long road I had come there had been 
scarcely a village worthy the name, and even the 
cottages were infrequent. I saw few people, and the 
busiest scene was on a spongy peat moss where several 



The Lakes of Killarney 31 

groups were getting out their year's supply of fuel. 
Four or five men composed each gang. One of them, 
using a spadelike cutter, dug out the long, soggy 
bricks of peat ; another with a fork tossed them up 
on the turf as fast as cut ; and the rest of the com- 
pany, also armed with forks, spread the sods to dry. 

Instead of returning as I came, I took a side way, 
and paid a shilling at a lodge gate for the privilege of 
following a devious road across several bridges and 
large islands through the Herbert estate. At length 
I was again on the main land and had before me the 
ruins of Muckross Abbey — a great ivy-grown church 
minus roof and windows, but otherwise practically 
complete. It had a fine situation on a hill, with the 
lake in sight not far away, and the peaks of the big 
mountains looming across the water. Close about was 
a burying-ground where rest the remains, if tradition 
is to be trusted, of many Irish kings and chiefs. The 
churchyard continues to be used as a place of inter- 
ment, and white modern crosses are mingled with 
gray moss-grown slabs, many of the latter fallen and 
worn blank by the storms of the passing years. The 
usual place of burial now is on the south and east sides, 
for the north is regarded as the Devil's side, and on the 
west are buried only unbaptized children, soldiers, and 
strangers. 

Within the abbey are many dim vaults and passages 



32 The Isle of the Shamrock 

and several great halls open to the sky, in which are 
graves and sombre tombs and headstones. One clois- 
tered court contains a yew tree grown to maturity with 
branches reaching out so thickly over the upper walls 
that scarcely more light comes from above than if the 
room had a roof. Naturally a tree so strangely placed 
has its mystic attributes, and the saying is that whoever 
takes a twig from the venerable yew will die within a year. 
A century ago a hermit by the name of John Drake 
lived in the abbey for the space of eleven years. By 
covering an open cell of one of the upper apartments 
with fragments of tombs and coffins he protected him- 
self against the inclemencies of the weather and made 
himself a home. He acquired a wide reputation for 
piety and for a demeanor that combined solemnity and 
cheerfulness. Pilgrims were in the habit of coming 
from a considerable distance to do penance at Muck- 
ross Abbey, and they exhibited their devotion to the 
saint of the place by going around the building a cer- 
tain number of times reciting prayers. The neighboring 
peasantry supplied the hermit with food, and everything 
was quite idyllic, until he was seen reeling intoxicated 
among the graves, and it was discovered that the holy 
man was given to solitary whiskey indulgences. In 
consequence the superstitious veneration of the Kil- 
larney folk and pilgrims diminished, and one night 
the hermit left for parts unknown. 



The Lakes of Killarney 23 

The final touch is given to the story by the relation 
that, some years later, a lady speaking with a foreign 
accent arrived at Muckross accompanied by two ser- 
vants who knew no English whatever. She asked 
many questions about the hermit, passed some weeks 
in praying and weeping over his stony couch, and then, 
after distributing alms, went away never to return. 

When I reached my hotel in Killarney town at the 
conclusion of the long day's tramping, I was weary 
enough to find it a very welcome haven. It was a 
humble establishment on one of the town byways ; yet, 
in spite of certain drawbacks, there was something 
about it decidedly congenial and interesting. It was 
a good place to see life and to meet everyday people, 
and this went far toward palliating its shortcomings. 
Of these I will not make a list further than to say 
that my room was a mixture, very characteristic of Ire- 
land, of attempts at tidiness and of what was pretty 
closely related to dowdyishness and dirt ; and the 
kitchen, of which I had glimpses as I went in and 
out, appeared not to have been cleaned or put in 
order for a month ; while the hotel parlor looked like 
an asylum for second-hand furniture. 

I was sitting in this parlor one evening when my 
landlady requested me to vacate in favor of two men 
who wanted to talk over a marriage which they hoped 
to consummate between their children. Nearly all the 



34 The Isle of the Shamrock 

Irish marry young, and among the poorer class they 
do so quite improvidently, with no question as to how 
rude the new home must be, and how barren its furnish- 
ings, and how meagre the prospect of income. Those 
who have property, however, do not make matrimonial 
alliances without careful calculation. A hotel is very 
apt to be chosen as a convenient meeting-place for the 
parents, and there they discuss the matter of dowry at 
great length, and the marriage depends more on their 
amicable agreement than on the love of those most 
concerned. Indeed, the match is frequently made by 
the elders before the young people have settled it 
themselves. The respective fathers haggle over what 
they will give with all the adroitness at their command, 
each trying to make as good a bargain as he can. If 
they fail to agree, they may call in a mutual friend to 
arbitrate; but, more likely, when one or the other con- 
cludes his companion will not donate enough, he goes 
elsewhere to seek some parent more liberal, and the 
difference of a cow or a donkey or so often breaks 
off a match. 

Most of the day following my walk to the upper 
lake I spent in rambling through the town. There 
were several streets of shops, but nearly all these shops 
were small and the majority of them looked cheap and 
slovenly. Shabby buildings were common, and on the 
by-lanes were frequent low cottages with thatched 



The Lakes of Killarney - 35 

roofs. The town forms part of the Kenmare estate, 
and about a century ago it was entirely rebuilt by the 
lord of the soil. He was careful to have garden space 
behind each house, but in the leases omitted to prohibit 
the use of this space for other purposes. The tenants, 
therefore, took advantage of their liberty, and the 
meagre bits of ground intended only for lawn or tillage 
were soon sublet and built over with hovels. Irish 
landlords everywhere have the greatest difficulty in 
preventing a mischievous subdivision of holdings. 
The tenantry persist in this practice even to the starv- 
ing point, and, aided by dirt and shiftlessness, they 
quickly transform what is planned to be a model vil- 
lage into a rookery. 

Killarney is a place of some five or six thousand 
inhabitants, yet in some ways it was as rustic as any 
farm hamlet. Cows, goats, and fowls of various sorts 
were familiar features of its streets, and went in and out 
the houses with surprising freedom. It was clear that 
the townsfolk lived on hardly less intimate terms 
with the farmyard creatures than did their brethren in 
the country. Once, as I passed a corner saloon, I saw 
a party of geese (not human ones) waddle in with an 
air of frequenters of the place which was emphasized 
by their crooked gait. They looked this way and 
that, and I thought cast thirsty glances at the array 
of bottles on the shelves, and then, no bartender 



^6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

chancing to be present, began nosing about the saw- 
dust-sprinkled floor. 

The cows enlivened the town ways with their com- 
ing and going every morning and every evening. At 
this season of the year they spent most of their time 
in the fields, and after each milking they were driven 
back to their pasturage. Their owners had stalls for 
them near their dwellings, in which the creatures were 
kept in winter. 

The costumes of the women of the laboring class 
added a good deal to the picturesqueness of the town. 
When near home they appeared on the street bare- 
headed, and on more extended errands they donned an 
old shawl. If the weather was chilly, they pulled the 
shawl about their faces and looked out on the world 
from its hooded seclusion. Women with bare feet 
were common, and even those who wore shoes did not 
always esteem it necessary to have on stockings. 

One feature of Killarney that was particularly notice- 
able when I was there was the number of broken 
windows right through the town, both in dwellings 
and in shops. It gave the place a depressing air of 
poverty, decay, and drunkenness. In explanation 
of this wreckage I was informed that a county council 
election had recently taken place. 

" Ah, we had hot work here, we did that ! " was the 
comment. 




A Town Byway 



The Lakes of Killarney 37 

In most districts of Ireland the election had passed 
off peacefully enough ; for nearly everywhere the 
national party was so dominant that no outside oppo- 
sition existed, and the contest was between two home- 
rulers. Thus it was all in the family, and there were 
no very marked explosions of partisan ardor. 

But at Killarney the rivals were a home-ruler and a 
unionist, and resort was had to methods of dealing 
with political heresy that in most places are now be- 
coming a little old-fashioned. As a matter of course, 
the enthusiasm of the patriots on both sides was 
braced with drink, and the persuasiveness of ardent 
spirits was used freely on the doubtful ones to make 
clearer to them the way they should vote ; but this 
was not all. On Easter Sunday the home-rulers 
gathered for a rally on the public square, where they 
had erected a platform. The speaking had begun and 
everything was moving smoothly when the unionists 
made a descent on the meeting, armed with eggs and a 
great number of little paper bags filled with flour. The 
invaders pelted right and left, aiming more especially 
at the orators and dignitaries on the platform. The 
air was full of yells, and blows mingled with the crack 
and spatter of the eggs, and the soft bursting of the 
flour bags. 

The crowd got well smeared, to say nothing of the 
bruises of the hand-to-hand hostilities, and the meeting 



3 8 The Isle of the Shamrock 

was effectually broken up. To the home-rulers the 
mortification was the deeper because this was the last 
gathering of the campaign and they were robbed of 
the chance to retaliate. But the thing about the 
assault which grieved them most was that the eggs 
used on them were in part bought from their own 
leader's wife. She kept a poultry yard, and the even- 
ing before had unsuspiciously sold to the enemy all 
the eggs she had on hand — some eight or ten dozen. 

During my stay in Killarney there was a funeral 
in one of the thatched cottages on a lane neighboring 
my hotel. I was not as close and personal a witness 
of it as I could wish, but it served to set my landlady 
talking, and I learned a good deal about Irish funeral 
customs. The body of the deceased, from the time 
of death until it leaves the house for burial, lies in 
state in the "best" room, which means the kitchen in 
the average home. It is wrapped in a shroud, face un- 
covered, on a table lightly sprinkled with salt. Flowers 
decorate the shroud if the body is that of a child — 
otherwise ribbons — black ribbons for a married person 
and white for unmarried. 

Such tables and other articles of furniture as are 
not immediately required are piled up on the bed, and 
forms are brought from the nearest public house to 
help seat the numerous company certain to be at the 
wake. Two candles are kept burning on each side of 



The Lakes of Killarney 39 

the departed one's head, and it is deemed imperative 
that these shall not be in common tin or iron candle- 
sticks, but in the aristocratic brass ones of the olden 
time. Rather than do without brass candlesticks the 
bereaved family will search over half a township to 
borrow them. 

The funeral expenses are usually heavy as compared 
with the people's means. Among other outgoes, a 
coffin must be bought, goods for the wake purchased, 
and food and drink provided for the mourners. The 
family spend freely if they have money ; and where 
their poverty is so pronounced as to prevent adequate 
preparations, some neighbor is pretty sure to go about 
and take up a collection in their behalf. 

The wake, which begins the night after the death, is 
in most instances resumed the night following, and 
may be continued three or even four nights before the 
funeral takes place, if the fortune of the deceased will 
permit, and if the temperature of the season will allow 
the burial to be deferred that long. The friends 
all come, for to stay away would be to slight the 
memory of the dead. The house is much crowded, 
and there are seats for only a small portion of those 
present. Formerly a wake was apt to degenerate into 
a carousal, no matter how well the melancholy proprie- 
ties were observed when it began. But now the com- 
mon feeling is that for people to get drunk on such 



40 The Isle of the Shamrock 

an occasion " gives a bad look to things," and, besides, 
the priests threaten not to hold a service at the house 
if the mourners at the wake indulge in strong spirits. 
A sup of whiskey for those who want it is still, I 
believe, not lacking ; yet it is imbibed sparingly, and, 
on the whole, the gathering is decorous and quiet. 
There may be some telling of stories, and joking in 
the back shed to while away the tedium of the slow 
hours, but it is never boisterous. 

Prominent among the mourners are the old women 
of the neighborhood. Long pipes and snuff are pro- 
vided for them, and they are given the most comforta- 
ble seats around the fireplace. There they sit and 
puff and solemnly meditate, and every time the snuff 
saucer is circulated they each take a pinch, and say in 
Irish, referring to the deceased, " May God be merci- 
ful to his (or her) soul ! " 

About midnight light refreshments are passed, ordi- 
narily bread and butter with tea and wine, or porter. 
After this repast most of the company scatter to their 
homes; but some linger until daylight, and a few elderly 
women stay by the corpse, in relays, from the death 
until the funeral. 

There is seldom any keening at the wakes now, save 
in out-of-the-way villages. Usually, the only lamenta- 
tions are the words that the old women address spon- 
taneously to the corpse. Suppose the deceased is a 



The Lakes of Killarney 41 

young man, and an old woman comes in and stands 
looking down to view the remains. She says, "Wisha, 
sure, 'twas well ! I knew your father, and 'twas he 
was the dacint man ; and little I thought I'd see you 
lying there to-day ; and sure 'twas yoursilf was the 
dacint boy ! 'Tis well I remimber when I used to 
rock you in the cradle mesilf; and sure I expicted 
'twas you who'd be at my wake instead of my comin' 
to lament over you ! " 

If it was an aged person who had died, the woman 
would say, "God be merciful to you, and God be with 
the ould times ! Sure, 'tis many the long day we've 
had together ! But, sure, God's will be done ; we'll 
all have to go the same road some day ! " 

The old woman also addresses words of comfort to 
members of the family of the departed, as, for instance, 
these to a mother who has lost a little girl. " You 
mustn't be frettin' now, poor woman. 'Tis well for 
you to have the little angel gone to heaven before you. 
Look at the way I lost my poor little Johnny ; and, 
sure, hadn't I to bear it ; and wasn't he the strong b'y 
when he wint on me ? What loss is yours, after all, 
compared with others I could name ! Look at Mary 
Nolan, poor woman, and hadn't she to put up with 
the loss of the provider of the family ? So you 
mustn't be frettin' now, agra ! That little angel will 
be intercedin' for you in the next worruld ! " 



42 The Isle of the Shamrock 

When there is keening an old woman sits rocking 
back and forth at the foot of the corpse, her face cov- 
ered with her hands. "Och hone! why did you die?" 
she chants, and continues with dirgelike cadence, in 
a long lamentation that in part mourns the death, 
and in part exalts the virtues, of the departed. At fre- 
quent intervals in this monody she breaks out into 
a keen — a wail thrice repeated in which her compan- 
ions join. Some old women become experts in the 
art of keening, and are called on to be chief mourners 
at all the wakes throughout their home region. 

Fifty years ago the merits of a man who died were 
celebrated with much emphasis on his valor in the 
fights of the local clans, and it was recalled with pride 
how well he wielded the blackthorn in his day. Nearly 
every neighborhood had its " factions " then, each with 
a leader who was its champion fighter. Fortunately, 
the dispositions of the members of opposing factions 
were not so warlike that enemies fought indiscrimi- 
nately wherever they met. It was mainly when the 
people got together in force at the fairs or the markets 
that there was trouble. They only needed to drink a 
bit and they wanted to try their strength on each other. 
If a row did not occur naturally, some man would take 
off his coat, trail it in the dust, and dare any one to step 
on the tail of it. This provocation never failed of its 
purpose, and you would hear the sudden, startling yells 



The Lakes of Killarney 43 

ringing through the town calling together the partisans, 
and then there would be " a wild whirl of shillalahs, and 
God knows what ! " Some of the combatants would 
have to be carried home, possibly maimed for life, or 
even to die. Feuds were handed down from generation 
to generation ; yet fights seldom occurred without the 
participants first having their valor strengthened by 
whiskey, and tales are told of encounters on the sea- 
shore where the tide has come in and drowned those 
that have fallen in the fray too drunk to rise. 

The shillalah was the only weapon considered en- 
tirely orthodox in these combats. It derives its name 
from a famous ^wood in County Wicklow, where the 
best oaks and blackthorns for its making are reputed 
to grow. The old-time peasantry were very careful in 
selecting a weapon, and also in its preparation after it 
was cut from hedge or woodland. The usual mode 
was to rub it over repeatedly with butter and place It 
up the chimney, where it was left for several months. 
Shapes varied, but the favorite style was that of a cane 
three or four feet long. Occasionally a man would 
arm himself with a shillalah having a length of eight or 
ten feet, known as a " wattle," or with what was called 
a " kippeen " — a short club that had a burly knot on 
the end. This last was the deadliest of the three, but 
could not be carried with the innocent appearance of a 
staff, as could the other two. 



44 The Isle of the Shamrock 

That the aggressive use of the shillalah is of the past 
is witnessed by the fact that at the wakes, instead of 
a pasan over a dead warrior, there is substituted the 
praise of a good father. " 'Twas he who reared his 
children well," cries the keener, " the quite (quiet) 
poor man — sure, you wouldn't know whether he was 
there or not ! " That is, he never made his presence 
a disturbing factor in his home. 

Killarney has the name of being a place where 
the beggars, by reason of their numbers and their per- 
sistence, make a real pest of themselves. But while I 
was there I encountered only one genuine specimen 
of the genus. I suppose it was as yet too early in 
the tourist season for visitors to be numerous, and 
the beggars had not begun to ply their trade in 
earnest. 

My beggar was a man accompanied by a little boy. 
I had started for a walk, and he overtook me, and re- 
marked on the fineness of the weather, though it looked 
very threatening at the time, and then he kept on with me 
for a mile or more. His tongue wagged unceasingly, 
and he commented on what was to be seen along the way, 
on the condition of Ireland, of England, and of Amer- 
ica, and wove into it all the tale of his own troubles, 
— how he was a shoemaker, but could find no work 
these two years, how he had been evicted, and how he 
had this little boy and four other children to provide 




An Able-bodied Beggar 



The Lakes of Klllarney 45 

for, and would I be good enough to help them a bit to 
get some food, etc., etc. 

After the beggar left me I went on along the lakes. 
The air darkened as I proceeded, and I could see 
that a storm was brewing among the mountain peaks. 
Presently there came a report of distant thunder, and 
a little girl whom I met at the moment made the sign 
of the cross and hurried on faster. I stopped and 
watched the clouds in doubt; but the storm seemed to 
be swinging off in another direction, and I walked on 
again, intending to climb one of the mountains and see 
the country from the heights. 

At length I took a road that wound high up the 
slopes of the hills, and as I went on I discovered that 
the rain had swept over this portion of my route and 
the road grew constantly wetter and more muddy. I 
continued to ascend until, in passing along the borders 
of the last patch of woods, before the land gave way 
to the stony upper wastes of heather and furze, I saw 
a tall, tattered man on ahead. He had a staff in his 
hand, and a cloak thrown loosely over his shoulders. 
Near him lay two dead sheep. I thought he looked 
as if he was some Robin Hood of the forest, who very 
likely had slain the creatures and was going to bear 
them stealthily away, and for a moment I entertained 
the fancy that he might treat me as he had them. He 
was peering about in a curious manner that I could not 



46 The Isle of the Shamrock 

understand, but his mild greeting, as I drew near, reas- 
sured me. The dead sheep, he said, had been killed 
by the lightning, and he had just found them there. 
He showed me some scorched streaks on their bodies, 
and when I resumed my walk and left him, he still 
hovered around the spot, as before, considering what 
was to be done. 

The road now faded into a dim, grassy trail, leading 
away across a boggy level to a steep slope that mounted 
high toward the craggy mountain summits. I was 
crossing this marshy stretch when another shower ap- 
proached. Behind me the landscape was being fast 
enveloped in murky blue mist, and a sombre twilight 
had crept over all the earth. I had a waterproof cape 
with me, and was about to put it on, intending to 
sit down on some rock and let the fast-gathering 
storm sweep over me, when I saw a woman not far 
ahead, moving off to the right, with a great bag on her 
shoulders. A glance in that direction revealed sev- 
eral thatched cabins among some tiny fields on a low 
hillside. 

Between me and this gray, earth-hugging little hamlet 
the ground was a watery, boulder-sprinkled bog, which 
looked like a vast plum pudding. Had the menacing 
blackness of the storm been less near and ominous, I 
would have made a detour. As it was, I took a bee- 
line across the marsh, keeping to the stones as much 



The Lakes of Killarney 4-7 

as possible, and with the first onset of the rain I 
reached the borders of the village. In a stableyard 
adjoining a dwelling I found an old woman relieving 
her shoulders of a plethoric bag full of heather, — bed- 
ding for her cow or goats, I presume, — and I con- 
cluded she was the person I had seen a few minutes 
previous toiling over the bog. She readily granted 
me permission to go into the house out of the down- 
pour, and I hastened to seek the welcome shelter. 

When I stooped through the low doorway, the house 
interior looked perfectly black, save for a feeble gleam 
of red in the fireplace ; but as my eyes grew accustomed 
to the gloom, the surroundings gradually disclosed them- 
selves. The room was open above to the smoke-black- 
ened rafters. Light entered through one small win- 
dow and the door. This door, after a fashion very 
common in Irish cabin architecture, was divided hori- 
zontally in halves, and while I was present only the 
lower half was closed. The floor, partly of hard-trod- 
den earth and partly of cobbles, was very uneven, and 
nothing set level on it. There were two small tables, 
a dresser sparsely filled with dishes, three chairs, and 
in odd places about the floor was a varied assortment 
of black kettles, pots and pans, shoes and rubbish. 
A good-sized clock was fastened to the wall, and ticked 
with steady solemnity in the dusk. 

The old woman had followed me in and given me a 



48 The Isle of the Shamrock 

chair, and had herself sat down by the fire. She was 
telling me how their clock had been up there on 
the wall where I saw it for twenty years, and what 
good company it was, when there came a clap of 
thunder. 

" O God Almighty, save us ! " she exclaimed, and 
made the sign of the cross, and then bowed forward and 
spread out her hands in supplication. The posture was 
awkward, perhaps, yet was eloquent of a childlike fear 
and faith. " God bless us and save us," she continued, 
" and save his honor (meaning me), and save the peo- 
ple, and all of us." 

The intonations of the thunder were of frequent re- 
currence after this, for the space of half an hour, and 
at every clap the old woman crossed herself and prayed 
something as above, though often mumbling more 
which I could not catch. The storm reminded her of 
a story — she would like to know if I had heard it, 
and whether I thought it might be true or no. 

" There was a man, and he was workin' in a field like, 
and it came on to thunder, and he put his head in a 
hole in the wall, and he said, ' God save what's out o' 
me.' But he ought to have prayed for the whole of 
him, for he no sooner said that, than the wall fell and 
took his head clean off. It was telled to me that this 
was a judgmint on the crathur, because it is not right 
to pray small, just for yoursilf. But you should pray 




A Farmyard Pump 



The Lakes of Killarney 49 

large — to save us all — pray big and open-hearted. 
But that may be only a story, sir." 

The fire beside which the woman sat was made on 
the floor at the end of the room under the wide hood 
of a chimney that flared out from the wall about five 
feet above the blaze. A sooty kettle hung over the 
flames and simmered cheerfully. Now and then the 
woman reached down to a heap of dry brushwood by 
her side, took up a few twigs, broke them across her 
knee, and laid them on the coals. If the fire was low, 
she would stoop and brighten the embers by blowing. 
It would flare up then, and its light would shine out 
into the dusky room. Her supply of pine twigs she 
obtained from the woodland down below, where the vil- 
lagers were allowed to gather what they needed. The 
household store of peat, their usual fuel, was gone. 
They cut it on the mountain a mile above, and when 
it was dry carried it down on their backs, a task in 
which both the men and the women shared. No one 
in the village owned a horse, and the only beasts of 
burden, aside from the human ones, were two donkeys. 
Even for them the task of bringing the "turf" down 
from the mountain was thought too severe, the path 
was so steep and rugged, and they were chiefly used 
" to take to town for some messages." 

A good deal of smoke drifted out into the room, and 
the woman explained that the chimney was bad, " but 



50 The Isle of the Shamrock 

some days we haven't a bit of smoke, and other days 
we have a good dale. It's as the wind turns." 

The woman had two sons and a daughter living with 
her, as she told me with a fervent " Thank God ! And 
I had another son who wint to Australia, and for two 
years I heard from him regular, and he sint me money ; 
but I have had no account since, and I suppose he is 
dead. God help it, sir ! And I had a daughter, too, 
that wint to America, to Worcester it was, sir, and her 
name it was Mrs. John Dwyer ; but I have had no ac- 
count from her, aither, this long time, and I suppose 
she is dead, too, sir." 

The family had a cow and a calf and nine or ten 
sheep. The sheep were grazing on the mountain at 
this season, but in the winter they were kept in the 
walled fields near the house. " We sells the wool," 
the woman said, " but it brings no price at all, now 
— it do not, sir." 

Few pigs were owned in the hamlet, but fowls were 
plenty, as I realized when the woman stepped outside 
for a moment and left the half-door open. Almost at 
once a bedraggled rooster skulked in and stood with 
his head well down between his shoulders, and his tail 
drooping to let the water run off. He did not look very 
attractive, but a hen, which seemed to think his com- 
pany desirable, came with a startling flutter and cackle 
from a nest in a room corner, lit near the rooster, and 



The Lakes of Killarney 51 

began looking about the floor for something to eat. 
Then a bevy of geese came in from the wet outer 
world. The place was getting pretty populous, but 
the woman presently returned and shooed these two- 
legged friends all out into the yard with a " Begone, 
you thieves, you ! " 

The woman's sons were at work for one of the 
gentry in the valley, so the family was not dependent 
on the little farm, and they ate the eggs their hens laid, 
instead of selling them as they would have to do, "if 
they were badly off." They bought oaten meal, and 
occasionally fish and bacon, and they made a trifle of 
butter now and then for home use, and raised a few 
cabbages and enough potatoes, in a good season, to last 
through the year. As soon as the potatoes matured, 
they dug day by day what they needed for immediate 
eating, and just before the winter set in placed the 
residue in a pit to which they had access in renewing 
the household supply. 

" If it is wet," explained the old woman, " or the 
blight do come too soon, the p'taties do not last, and 
thin we eats bread; and our crops do none of thim do 
well unless we have the sun — the foine time, sir ! " 

However, they fared much better than when she 
was a "gaffer" (a girl of ten or twelve). "Thin the 
times was tight, and we lived on p'taties altogither. 
Sometimes we ate thim with only salt, and sometimes 



52 The Isle of the Shamrock 

we ate thim with milk. We niver had bread ixcipt 
at Christmas, and very little mate at all." 

Continuing her story of the local life, the old 
woman said that for the cattle they raised hay and 
oats, " and we might have plinty of provender, by 
the will of God, if it was not for the deer comin' 
here from the forest. There do be ony amount of 
thim crathurs back here on the mountains. They 
gets into the corn and spoils it on us. Every night 
now, when the stalks gets big, the deer come and do 
be atin' them so the corn will not be worth the cuttin'. 
They feeds on our grass, too, when it gets Strang." 

On Sunday all the mountain folk go to mass at 
Killarney, four miles distant. Winter or summer, it 
makes little difference. " All the people around go, 
sir, except it may be those who are too old or feeble." 

I mentioned the fact that Ireland had no snakes, 
and the woman said, " You have them in your coun- 
try, I believe, sir, and I suppose they'd eat a person 
nearly, sir." 

While we were talking the daughter of the house 
came in very wet with the rain, and the mother got 
up and had her sit by the fire. A great long-legged 
dog had entered with the daughter, and after shaking 
himself vigorously, and sending the water-drops flying 
all around the room, he, too, drew near to the fire, and 
his damp fur was soon steaming in the heat. 



The Lakes of Killarney 



53 



As I was leaving, the old woman said, " You are an 
Irishman, sir, I suppose ? " 

My negative seemed to surprise the two women 
[greatly, for they said one to the other, " God help us, 
but he looks like an Irishman, does he not, now ? " 

When I stepped outside I found the water still 
dripping from the eaves of the thatch, but the storm 
was over, and by the time I was well started on my 
way toward the valley the sun came out. It silvered the 
green-isleted lakes far down below, and even brought 
a faint gleam of brightness to the watery heights of 
dun-colored heather ; and as the clouds dissolved, and 
the gauzy mists drifted away from the blue mountain 
peaks, I saw that their loftier summits were whitened 
with a film of snow. 




IV 



A MOUNTAIN CLIMB 

iHE weather in the early 
hours of the following 
morning was unusually 
fine. The blue of the sky was 
perfectly clear and placid, and 
yesterday's storm was only a 
reminiscence. It 
had swept over Kil- 
larney town with 
great severity, and 
hailstones had fallen 
which the natives 
said were " as big as 
small p'taties." But 
it was the thunder 
rather than the hailstones that had especially aroused 
the anxiety of the townfolk, and their alarm was of much 
the same type as that I had witnessed in the hut on the 
mountain. They did more praying in the short dura- 
tion of this one storm than they would have done in 

54 




A Mountain Climb 55 

six months of fair weather, and with every crash from 
the heavens the sins of the whole community were 
repented of afresh. 

In the schools the approach of the storm was heralded 
by a general desire to scud for home, where the chil- 
dren had the feeling they would be safer, but the teachers 
refused permission. From the first rumble of thunder 
to the last the scholars were so frightened that study- 
ing was out of the question, and they could only trem- 
ble and protect themselves from impending destruction 
by continual crossings. When the storm passed the 
praying ceased, and I suppose no more wholesale re- 
penting was done until there was another thunderstorm. 

My purpose to scale one of the Killarney moun- 
tains had been foiled on the previous day, but now the 
clear sunshine and a fresh breeze encouraged me to 
try again. I had no very roseate fancy for the task — 
a gentler sort of exercise would have been more to my 
liking; yet I could not help feeling the attraction of 
those purple heights that serrated the whole southern 
sky-line. I decided I must at least have a single ex- 
perience of the pleasures and possible hardships of an 
ascent, and I chose for my objective, Mt. Mangerton, 
twenty-eight hundred feet high, an altitude slightly 
exceeded by a rival peak across the lakes, but not 
attained by any other mountain in all Ireland. 

The route to Mangerton passed near the village 



56 The Isle of the Shamrock 

where I had been during the storm of the day before, 
immediately beyond which, climbing began in earnest. 
The land upheaved in a big heathery slope strewn 
with boulders and dotted with clumps of furze. I 
kept to a faint path that followed a dry watercourse 
choked with stones and bordered on either side with 
a narrow ribbon of green turf. In places the trail was 
so uncertain that I would lose it and get off among 
the hummocks of the bog, where the heather and the 
spongy mosses intermitted with cracks and chasms of 
black mud. Some of these oozy crevasses I leaped, 
some I went around. At a distance the bog looked 
innocent enough, and I would not have imagined that 
walking on it could have been so toilsome and con- 
fusing. It was always a relief to get back to the firm 
track along the stony ravine. 

A few goats and sheep were feeding on the moun- 
tain-side, but I saw no human life — not even a shep- 
herd boy. The way continued steep and difficult, and 
the steady upward climb was hot and exhausting. It 
would have been worse still had not gathering clouds 
occasionally obscured the sun. I paused often to rest 
and look back on the dwindled world below. There 
lay the lakes, with their irregular outlines and their 
numerous islets, and there spread the dusky undula- 
tions of the land through which crept the shining, 
sinuous streams, and over which drifted a vast patch- 



A Mountain Climb 57 

work of sunlight and cloud-shadows, evanescent and 
vague as a dream. 

At last the path brought me to a small lough lying 
in a great, high-clifFed pocket of the mountain-top — 
a sombre, lonely little tarn known as the Devil's Punch 
Bowl. In spite of its name, I ventured to drink from 
it, and found the water very pure and cold. But 
back in the days when the O'Donoghues were the 
acknowledged rulers of the Killarney country this 
highland pool was not so innocent. The story is that 
a certain chieftain of the clan was on familiar terms 
with his Satanic Majesty, and in the latter's honor one 
time filled the lake with whiskey. Hence the name. 
Besides being icy cold, the water contains no fish, and 
is said to be always in a state of agitation. The Eng- 
lish statesman. Fox, swam around its twenty-eight acres 
in 1772, and the natives still talk of the exploit. 

The Punch Bowl is twenty-two hundred feet above 
the level of the sea, and my goal, the summit of Man- 
gerton, was somewhat over half a thousand feet higher. 
I soon resumed climbing, and the view broadened as 
I went on, until I could see all the great company of 
mountains round about. The heavy-based blue peaks 
rose on every side in vaporous mystery, a conclave of 
giants ; and it seemed to me there could hardly be 
finer mountains anywhere in the world. 

Shortly after leaving the Punch Bowl, the path 



58 The Isle of the Shamrock 

entirely disappeared, and only trackless bog lay before 
me. But it was not uneven and broken, like the 
bogs lower down. Heavily saturated surface vegeta- 
tion overspread it, and the water spirted from beneath 
my shoes at every step, almost as if I had been wad- 
ing through a shallow pond. I was rejoiced to find a 
momentary escape from this watery waste at the very 
summit of the mountain in the shape of a low cairn 
of stones. Thence I looked about me more particu- 
larly. The situation, just there, was not very impres- 
sive, for Mangerton has a rounded top, and I was in 
the midst of a wide plain of weak grasses, moss, and 
stunted heather. Save for a few skylarks soaring 
and singing, the mountain-top was wholly abandoned 
and silent, and I had no desire to linger. 

By the time I had descended to the Punch Bowl, a 
shower came drooping across the sober moorlands, and 
I crouched under some projecting rocks and waited 
for it to pass. Afterward I sought out the mountain- 
path by which I had come up and continued down its 
now moist declivity until I reached the level of the 
tiny hamlet off beyond the marsh. It was after two 
o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since breakfast, with 
the exception of a few cakes I had carried along in my 
pocket. On the chance of getting a glass of milk in 
the village, I crossed the marsh and went up one of 
the hamlet's rough, narrow lanes. The place proved 



A Mountain Climb 59 

to be well-nigh deserted, but the desertion was tem- 
porary, not permanent. It was a "Holy Day" — 
Corpus Christi — and nearly every one had gone off 
to town to attend mass and to trade at the shops. 
Only a few women and old men were left behind ; for 
the day, as spent in the town, meant a peculiarly satis- 
factory combination of religion, business, and pleasure, 
and no one was willingly a stay-at-home. 

I walked to the farther side of the village and back, 
and saw all of its seven houses. Their surroundings 
were very unkempt and filthy. The stable yards, with 
their muck and mire, were right before the house- 
doors, and the chickens and other farmyard creatures 
wandered about as they chose, and were nearly as well 
acquainted with the family kitchens as were the human 
inmates. On the hillside about the houses were many 
little fields that looked to be under very thorough 
tillage, some of them green with grass or oats, while 
others, which had recently been dug over, were as yet 
brown earth. Heavy stone walls crisscrossed the 
slope in a small-meshed network, which, nevertheless, 
failed to absorb all the stones the soil yielded, and 
there were frequent great piles in the midst of the 
fields. 

One old man, who closely resembled a travelling 
ragbag, greeted me from a doorway, and went on to 
say that he was eighty-eight years old, and almost 



6o The Isle of the Shamrock 

blind. He had been a boatman on the lakes when 
he was younger, and at the time Queen Victoria was 
at Killarney, in 1861, he had been one of her rowers. 
This was the single great event of his life, and he dwelt 
on it fondly. The recollection of it seemed to bring 
to mind his personal appearance, and to awake the 
feeling that his clothes were not all they should be, in 
consideration of the dignity conferred by this long-ago 
honor. Nothing would do but he must go in and 
tidy up. After a considerable interval he reappeared, 
wearing a black dress-coat much too small for him. 
Indeed, it was not wholly on, but stuck half way ; and 
it so constrained his arms that he could do little to 
better adjust the garment himself, and had to ask me 
for assistance. When he finally succeeded in pinching 
the coat about him, he resumed, with added satisfac- 
tion, the story of his life. But it soon came to an 
end. Aside from that luminous period of the queen's 
visit, when he was among those chosen to be her rowers, 
the only feature of his experience that had made deep 
impress was the increasing blindness of these sombre 
latter years. 

I called again at the cottage where I had been dur- 
ing the thunderstorm the day before. The daughter 
was at home, but the old mother had gone to mass 
early in the morning, and would not return until 
evening. I asked if I could get a glass of milk, and 



A Mountain Climb 6i 

the woman filled a teacup from a large earthen bowl 
that had been on a shelf in a dark corner. When 
she handed it to me she apologized for any smoky 
taste the milk might have, and in all she did and 
said my hostess was thoroughly considerate and kindly. 
She was no longer young, and she was homely, and 
worn with rude labor almost to ugliness ; but she 
could not have treated me with more genuine polite- 
ness had she been a lady in a mansion. 

It was she who did most of the work about the 
place, for her brothers were day laborers in the valley, 
and her mother was getting old. " Ah, no," she said, 
" mother cannot worruk long together now. She likes 
best to light her pipe and tramp off to Killarney to 
mass, or to sit on a bank in the fields and smoke there, 
and often she do lay down her pipe on the bank and 
forget it." 

I spoke of Queen Victoria's rower, and the woman 
said : " That was Daniel Hurley. He was a good 
rower when he was young and Strang, but he's nearly 
dark, now, the poor man ! " 

Life must be very sober-hued, I thought, in the 
forlorn little hamlet ; but it has its bright spots, notwith- 
standing. One of these is dancing, a favorite recreation 
throughout Ireland. With the approach of summer, 
in nearly every well-settled region the young men join 
in contributing enough money to put up a dancing 



62 The Isle of the Shamrock 

platform at some central place. There they have 
their jigs each pleasant evening, until the chill days 
of the late autumn put an end to these open-air 
festivities. Then the scene of them is transferred 
indoors, and they come at longer intervals; but in 
some convenient farmhouse a dancing party is pretty 
sure to gather on Sunday evening, if on no other even- 
ing of the week, the winter through. In case of a grand, 
all-night ball, a half-barrel of porter is provided to 
keep up the enthusiasm, which otherwise would tend 
to flag in the small hours of the morning. 

A place like the remote little mountain village I was 
visiting had to forego the pleasure of the summer dances. 
The community was too small, and the work of the 
day too heavy and prolonged. Winter brought com- 
parative leisure, and the able-bodied folk of the hamlet 
could not only attend the dances in the home village, 
but those that occurred for miles around. On the 
mountain, where the houses are all small, room was 
secured for the merrymaking by moving out most of 
the furniture. The music, on ordinary occasions, was 
supplied by some of the local youths who played 
the concertina, but in a really tony affair a fiddler, or 
perhaps a piper, was hired. 

There was a curious lack of animation in the woman's 
voice and manner as she told me about these rural balls. 
I suppose for her the days of sweethearts were past, and 



A Mountain Climb 6^ 

that she no longer joined in the dancing, but sat among 
the old folks, looking on. 

When I prepared to go on down the mountain, I 
offered a piece of silver for the milk I had drank. 
That was a mistake. It hurt the woman's feelings. 
The welcome accorded me had not been for money, 
but was an unselfish expression of hospitality. What 
was true in this upland home was true of the Kerry 
peasantry generally — they like to have a stranger come 
into their houses and sit and chat, and perhaps have a 
bit to eat and drink with them. To offer pay is to 
destroy the comradeship which they value above profit. 
This open-hearted friendliness was a surprise to me, 
and wherever I met with it, there was awakened not 
only respect and warm regard for my entertainers, but, 
to some degree, for all Ireland. 

In recalling what I saw of the tillage about these 
mountain huts at Killarney, I am impressed with the 
predominance of the potato plots ; and it was the 
same in the poor little bogland villages everywhere I 
travelled. As a matter of history, potatoes have been 
the mainstay of Ireland for more than two hundred 
years. The question is still disputed whether they 
have proved a boon, or a sustainer of poverty and 
wretchedness. A very limited portion of land, a few 
days of labor, and a small amount of manure will 
create a stock on which a family can exist for twelve 



^4 The Isle of the Shamrock 

monthso But the dependence on a single crop is dis- 
astrous when that crop fails, as it naturally must, from 
time to time, so that on the whole it is to be regretted 
that the potato has won such an exclusive place for itself. 

The potato was first made known to Ireland by- 
Sir Walter Raleigh, who owned an estate on the south 
coast. It won its way slowly, and both in Britain and 
on the continent was for some time cultivated only in 
gardens, and even there as a curiosity rather than 
as an article of food. Presently it was imagined that 
it might be used with advantage for feeding "swine 
or other cattle," and by and by that it might be eaten 
by poor people, and thus serve to prevent famine when 
the grain crops failed. Ireland led all European coun- 
tries in the adoption of the potato by many years ; 
and it was from there it was introduced into Lanca- 
shire, about the end of the seventeenth century, whence 
it spread over England. 

Erin's most distressing experience with this staple 
was in the famine years of 1846 and 1847. ^ ^^ ^^~ 
quainted with no more graphic description of that 
period — the darkest through which the island has 
passed in centuries — than is contained in the pages 
of " Realities of Irish Life," by W. Steuart Trench. 
His story is well worth retelling. Mr. Trench resided 
at Cardtown, in Queen's County, where he had become 
much interested in reclaiming an extensive tract of 



A Mountain Climb 6^ 

mountain land, chiefly of rough pasture covered with 
heather. He kept no less than two hundred laborers 
constantly employed in this enterprise at good wages, 
and the upland glen where his mountain property was 
located, with a clear trout brook flowing through it to 
enhance its attraction, had come to be known as " The 
Happy Valley." 

He accomplished the reclaiming mostly by means 
of the potato, the only green crop which would 
flourish on such ground. Guano had at that time 
recently been brought into use as a manure, and he 
found it was particularly suited to the potato. This 
and lime he applied liberally. The land was ploughed 
into "lazy beds" — ridges about five feet in width, 
alternating with furrows. The potatoes were planted 
on the ridges by merely sticking the spade into the 
rough earth and dropping in the seed back of the tool, 
where it remained two or three inches beneath the sur- 
face, when the spade was withdrawn. The potatoes 
thus treated developed to perfection, and the harvest 
well repaid all labor and expense. Meanwhile the 
heather rotted under the influence of the lime, and was 
transformed with other abundant vegetable matter 
which the soil contained into a valuable fertilizer. 
Finally, in digging the crop, the ground was thoroughly 
turned and stirred. As it was now both mellow and 
greatly enriched, it was in excellent order for sowing 

F 



66 The Isle of the Shamrock 

grass or grain, and was permanently worth twenty times 
its former value. 

The expense of reclamation was practically defrayed 
by the sale of the first year's crop alone; and encour- 
aged by success attained in previous seasons, Mr. 
Trench, in 1846, planted to potatoes more than one 
hundred and fifty acres. Everything went well dur- 
ing the early summer, and in July the extent and luxu- 
riance of his upland potato fields were the wonder of 
every one who saw them. He felt certain that the har- 
vest would bring him at least ^3000. But on August 
1st he was startled by the report that all the potatoes 
of the district were blighted. He immediately hurried 
up to the Happy Valley, and was relieved to find his 
crop as flourishing as ever, in full blossom, the stalks 
matted across each other with richness, and promising 
a splendid increase. Things were quite otherwise in 
the lowlands, whither he rode on his return. The 
leaves of the potatoes, in many instances, were withered, 
and a strange stench, such as he had never smelled 
before, filled the atmosphere about every blighted field. 
He learned that the odor was generally the first indi- 
cation of the disease, and the withered leaf followed in 
a day or two afterward ; lastly the tubers themselves 
were affected and rapidly blackened and melted away. 
Much alarm prevailed in the country, and those who, 
like Mr. Trench, had staked a large amount of capital 



SMX'::. 



^' 




A Mountain Climb 67 

on the crop became extremely uneasy, while the peas- 
antry looked on, helplessly dismayed, at the total dis- 
appearance of the crop of all crops on which they 
depended for food. 

Mr. Trench now went regularly each day to his 
mountain farm, and saw it steadily advance toward a 
healthy and abundant maturity until August 6th. On 
that day as he rode up the valley he was met by the 
stench. This increased as he kept on, until he could 
hardly bear the fearful smell. The fields still looked 
as promising as ever, but he recognized that their 
doom was sealed. As soon as the necessary arrange- 
ments could be made, he attempted to save himself 
from total loss by converting into starch as many of 
the potatoes as could be rescued from the impending 
decay, but the sum realized was more than counter- 
balanced by the expense. 

Desolation, misery, and starvation now rapidly af- 
fected the poorer classes throughout Ireland. In the 
comparatively fertile and prosperous midland coun- 
ties there were few deaths from actual starvation ; yet 
many succumbed to impure and insufficient diet, while 
fever, dysentery, and the crowding in the workhouse 
carried off thousands. 

It took time for would-be helpers to realize the 
extent and seriousness of the catastrophe, but public 
relief works were soon set on foot by the government. 



68 The Isle of the Shamrock 

soup kitchens were estabHshed, free trade was partially 
adopted, Indian meal poured into the country, and 
money was supplied without limit ; yet still the people 
died. The trouble seemed to be that the sufferers 
had neither the strength nor energy to seek the aid 
offered even when it was near at hand. Not far from 
two hundred thousand perished in all, and as a result 
of the distress vast numbers emigrated. 

A considerable period elapsed before the country 
recovered from the disaster. This was illustrated by 
Mr. Trench's experience in Kerry, where he went 
toward the end of 1849, ^Y request of Lord Lans- 
downe, one of the great proprietors of the county. 
The misery of the famine years had been especially 
marked at Kenmare. His lordship had there an estate 
of sixty thousand acres, lying in an extensive valley 
about thirty miles long and sixteen broad. Little 
grain was grown in the district, and the portions of 
land reclaimed from the rocky mountains were so 
small that they were barely sufficient to grow potatoes 
and turnips enough for the sustenance of the people 
and their cattle through the winter. No restraint had 
been put on the subdivision of holdings, and boys 
and girls not yet out of their teens married unchecked, 
without thinking it necessary to provide aught for their 
future beyond a shed to shelter them and a bit of land 
for a potato patch. Innumerable squatters had settled 



A Mountain Climb 6^ 

unquestioned in huts on the mountain sides and in the 
remote glens ; and when supplies ran short, as they did 
in the spring or by the beginning of summer nearly 
every year, these squatters nailed up the doors of 
their cabins, took all their children along with them, 
and started out on a migratory and piratical expedition 
over the counties of Kerry and Cork, trusting to their 
adroitness and good luck in begging to keep the family 
aHve until the potato crop again matured. When the 
rot attacked this staple, and it melted completely away 
before the eyes of the people, Kenmare was paralyzed. 
All were reduced to nearly equal poverty, and begging 
was out of the question. Thus it happened that the 
wretched dwellers of the upland huts were reduced to 
dire straits, and great numbers of them succumbed to 
their fate almost without a struggle. 

By the time Mr. Trench came to Kenmare the 
famine was about over, but its after effects were still 
formidable, and the people were dying nearly as fast as 
ever of fever, scurvy, and other complaints within the 
walls of the workhouse. The workhouse itself was not 
large enough to accommodate the unfortunates who 
flocked to it, and large auxiliary sheds had been erected 
to shelter the overflow. About ten thousand persons 
in the vicinity were receiving relief Mr. Trench first 
gave his attention to reducing the crowd in the poor- 
house, and to this end promised the inmates outside 



70 The Isle of the Shamrock 

work near by and reasonable wages. His intention was 
to put them at draining, subsoiling, removing rocks 
and stones, and like labor. At once three hundred 
gaunt, half-famished men, and nearly as many women 
and boys, presented themselves, expecting him not only 
to provide employment, but tools. They were too 
weak to be very effective, and accomplished not much 
more than one-fourth of what they would have under 
ordinary conditions. 

Now that they had work, they could no longer lodge 
in the poorhouse, and their scattered home huts were 
in most instances so far distant that walking to them 
for housing after the day's labor was out of the ques- 
tion. As a result, every cabin in the town was packed 
nightly with these unhappy work-people, and they slept 
by threes and fours together, wherever they could get 
a pallet of straw to lie on. They lived from hand to 
mouth, and on a wet day, when they could not labor, 
nearly one-half of them were obliged to return for the 
time being to the poorhouse, and the sudden influx 
of such a body of famished newcomers created great 
confusion. Mr. Trench saw plainly that this could 
not go on, and with Lord Lansdowne's approval and 
financial support he put into practice another scheme. 
He offered free emigration to every man, woman, and 
child now in the poorhouse who was chargeable to his 
lordship's estate. This was not wholly philanthropy ; 




A Dwindling Haystack 



A Mountain Climb 71 

for though it was believed that the paupers would 
gain thereby, it was also argued that it was cheaper to 
pay their passage abroad than to continue to support 
them at home. They were allowed to select what port 
in America they pleased, whether Boston, New York, 
New Orleans, or Quebec. 

The announcement was at first scarcely credited. 
To the dwellers of the workhouse it was considered too 
good news to be true. But when it began to be be- 
lieved and appreciated, there was an instant rush to get 
away. A selection was made, and two hundred each 
week were conducted to Cork, under close surveillance, 
to keep them from scattering, and were soon safely on 
board the emigrant ship. They made a motley com- 
pany ; but notwithstanding the distress of their circum- 
stances, they were in the most uproarious spirits. There 
was no crying or lamentation. All was delight at hav- 
ing escaped the deadly workhouse. The majority of 
them spoke only the Irish language, and these wild 
batches direct from the stricken boglands of the old 
country must have presented a strange spectacle when 
they landed on the wharves of America ; yet Mr. 
Trench affirms that nearly ail, even to the widows and 
children, found employment immediately after arriving, 
and adds that they have acquitted themselves, in their 
adopted land, most creditably. It was many months 
before the desire for free emigration was satisfied, and 



72 



The Isle of the Shamrock 



the poorhouse filled as fast as it was emptied. In all, 
forty-six hundred persons were assisted across the sea 
from this single estate, and very greatly to its benefit. 
It was no longer over-populated, small holdings were 
combined, and the tenants were enabled to win much 
better livings than had been possible before. 




IN THE GOLDEN VALE 




I 



T did not look golden from 
my window in the second 
story of a hotel at Kilmal- 
lock. Down below was a rough, 
dirty street, wet with recent show- 
ers, and all of the place that was 
in sight had an appearance of 
grimy, hopeless decadence which, 
unfortunately, is far too character- 
istic of the Irish towns through- 
out Erin. 

Kilmallock was a fortified town 

in the Middle Ages, and 

two massive towers and 

remnants of the old walls 

are still standing. In the 

near meadows is another 

reminiscence of medievalism, — the extensive remains 

of a fine abbey that was wrecked by Cromwell in the 

course of his devastating conquest of the island. The 

73 




74 The Isle of the Shamrock 

place has seen stirring times, and some of its days of 
turmoil are yet fresh in men's memories. A promi- 
nent feature of the chief street is a monument, spoken 
of by the inhabitants as a " Fenian Cross," erected " in 
memory of the heroic dead" of 1798 and 1867. Among 
the names inscribed on the stone are those of two "who 
died for Ireland at Kilmallock on March 6th, 1867," 
and of three who, shortly after that date, " were done 
to death in English prisons." 

That fatal 6th of March marked the high-tide of 
the land agitation. The Limerick people rose to assert 
what they believed were their rights, and a real battle 
on a small scale was fought in Kilmallock's streets. 
The townfolk and the farmers, to the number of two 
thousand, armed themselves and made a night assault 
on the local government barracks. But informers had 
given the constabulary an inkling of what was coming, 
and they were on their guard, and reenforcements 
promptly came to their assistance. For a time the 
town ways were full of uproar, and bullets flew, and 
there was loss of life on both sides. In the end the 
mob yielded to the soldiery, and the leaders of the in- 
surrection were apprehended and imprisoned, and some 
of their number were later transported to " the Bush " 
in Australia. 

There were similar risings in other districts, all 
short-lived, with the same melancholy outcome. The 




I 

u 



i2 



In the Golden Vale 75 

Irish had hoped to gain successes that would bring on 
a general struggle, in which event they believed the 
Americans would take their part, and Erin would win 
its independence. The rancor of these conflicts be- 
tween the populace and the government has not yet 
died out, and the informers will be remembered as 
" traitors " and " scabs " as long as they live. They 
are blacklisted, and are social outcasts ; they are handi- 
capped in making a living, and their sons and daughters 
cannot contract desirable marriages. 

This attempt to liberate Ireland originated with the 
" Fenian Brotherhood," a vast organization that had 
members in all parts of the world. New York was 
the headquarters of the league. It had money at its 
disposal, and, more than that, soldiers trained by the 
American Civil War. But all was not harmony among 
the would-be revolutionists, and their enthusiasm was 
not without alloy. A leader of the movement in Dub- 
lin expressed his dissatisfaction with the American allies 
by declaring that the recruits they furnished were ex- 
ceedingly few, and that they were merely "glib talkers, 
lavish of boast and promise, who did more harm than 
good by their glozing words and scanty deeds." How- 
ever, preparations went on apace for a rising, arms and 
munitions of war were purchased, military exercises were 
practised, and on the 31st of May, 1866, the Fenians 
in America invaded Canada. They occupied Fort 



76 The Isle of the Shamrock 

Erie, defeated the Canadian volunteers, and captured 
some flags. But the United States interfered to en- 
force the neutrality of its frontier, arrested most of the 
leaders, and extinguished the invasion. 

The Fenians in England planned the capture of 
Chester Castle, with the intention of seizing its military 
stores. Then they expected to cut off telegraphic com- 
munications, hasten to Holyhead, take possession of 
such steamers as might be there, and invade Ireland 
before the authorities could prepare for the blow. The 
plan, however, was betrayed, and came to nothing. 

The attempt to foment a general rising in Erin 
itself in March, 1867, was hardly more successful. 
The very elements fought against it, and snow, rare in 
Ireland, fell with disheartening insistence. The per- 
sons engaged in the movement were either American 
and Irish-American adventurers, or artisans, day labor- 
ers, and mechanics, generally unprovided with arms 
and, in many cases, scarcely beyond the years of boy- 
hood. The only military enterprises undertaken by 
them consisted in attacks on the barracks of the rural 
constabulary. These attacks were almost without ex- 
ception defeated, and as a rule the parties dispersed of 
their own accord, or were made prisoners after a single 
night's campaign. The rest betook themselves to the 
mountains ; but a few days of exposure and hardship, 
in which they managed to evade pursuit, sufficed to 



In the Golden Vale 77 

entirely discourage them, and none of the bands long 
held together. 

The leaders of the insurrection were promptly tried 
by a special commission, and tranquillity for a time 
seemed to be restored in Ireland. But the Fenian 
Brotherhood continued to exist, and there was still 
much discontent. Considerable alarm was created in 
England and Scotland by the daring of the league. 
An assault was made in the open day on a police-van 
in Manchester, and the officer in charge was killed, and 
his prisoners, who were suspected Fenians, were released. 
A few weeks later an attempt was made to blow up the 
Clerkenwell prison, to set free some Fenians held there. 
But the explosion failed to accomplish its purpose. 
Instead, several innocent persons were killed, and the 
perpetrator was hanged. Rumors were circulated of 
intended burnings in the cities and towns, gunsmith's 
shops and even government stores were broken open 
and pillaged, and there was for a time a vague but 
wide-spread feeling of apprehension. 

The disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869 
and the land act of 1870 removed some of the griev- 
ances most complained of, and the Fenians became less 
belligerent, and turned their attention to righting wrongs 
by political agitation. There still is talk of war when- 
ever English arms are desperately engaged abroad, but 
the hopelessness and folly of it are apparent to all save 



78 The Isle of the Shamrock 

a few extremists, and the peace of Ireland's future seems 
assured. 

To see the vale of Limerick in its "golden " aspect 
you have to leave the town. Then you find yourself 
amid a wide sweep of lowlands, fertile and luscious be- 
yond any other part of Ireland. The generous fields 
are bounded by hawthorn hedgerows, and there are no 
bogs, and no wastes of stony hillsides, which, one or 
both, are common in most sections. If you overlook 
the vale from the crest of one of its gentle undula- 
tions, and see the sun strike down to the earth through 
a break in the clouds, the fields brighten beneath the 
caress of the warm rays into a fresh, juicy, lightsome 
green, so charming in color and suggestiveness that you 
feel it must have been some such vision which inspired 
the island's prefix of "Emerald." The greenness of 
Ireland is not, however, confined to any chance play 
of light. Few countries are more moist and showery, 
and fewer still, in the temperate zone, can rival Ireland's 
equable freedom from extremes of heat and cold. 

The Golden Vale is a great dairy district, and the 
land is in the main devoted to grazing and to raising 
cattle feed. Local creameries take all the milk pro- 
duced, separate the cream, and make butter for the 
English market. Their product finds a ready sale at 
a good price, while the butter made in Irish farmhouses 
is regarded askance, and not without reason. The 




o 

o 



In the Golden Vale 79 

farmers bring their milk to the creameries in great 
clumsy cans known as " churns," a name originating 
in their shape, which resembles that of the old up-and- 
down variety of those articles. A two-wheeled cart 
drawn by a donkey is the usual conveyance. The 
driver may be the farmer, a hired man or boy, or pos- 
sibly one of the women of the farm household. When 
the churns are emptied they are refilled with skim milk, 
which is taken home to feed the calves. 

The farms in southern Ireland vary in size from a 
few acres to many hundreds, but holdings of less than 
fifty acres are accounted small, while those rising above 
that number are spoken of as large. Land of excep- 
tional quality and placing will yield a rental of £^1 an 
acre. Ten to fifteen shillings is, however, nearer the 
average. Farm homes are apt to be unprepossessing 
and beggarly, even where the inmates are well-to-do. 
The Irish, from long-established habits or lack of 
pride, seem to have no concern as to the appearance 
of their dwellings, and they take little interest in 
making improvements, though this is partly because 
they in most cases do not and never will own the 
property they occupy. 

The ordinary small farmer goes to and from town 
driving a donkey or a horse attached to a springless 
and seatless farm cart. He sits on one side just in 
front of the wheel, with his legs hanging off over the 



8o The Isle of the Shamrock 

shaft. The vehicle is diminutive, yet on occasion it 
will accommodate half a dozen persons in one position 
and another. Large farmers drive a jaunting-car or 
a trap. When their wives are along, the distinction 
between the large and the small farmers is still more 
marked, as the women of the former class are addicted 
to wearing hats and bonnets. Yet such a test is not 
a sure one, for among the younger women, rich and 
poor alike, the tendency is to more and more recog- 
nize fashion and discard the plebeian shawl as a head 
covering. 

A large proportion of the laborers in the Golden 
Vale come from the comparatively sterile neighboring 
county of Kerry, where wages are decidedly less. The 
Sundays of March are the hiring days, and these are 
marked by a great deal of hurly-burly in Kilmallock, 
which is the labor centre for all the eastern part of 
County Limerick. Hundreds of the Kerry " boys 
and girls " congregate on its streets each recurring 
Sunday, to bargain for places with the farmers who 
drive in from many miles round about. 

The weather was showery while I was at Kilmallock, 
but there were bright spells intermingled, so that I 
was not kept indoors. I liked best to wander out 
into the farming country. The people on the road 
always greeted me with a friendly nod and a " Good 
day," and I often talked with them, and occasionally 




Bv THE Kitchen Fireside 



In the Golden Vale 8i 

visited their homes. One farmer who entertained me 
was a man named Lynch. He was prosperous, and 
his farm was well-tilled, but his dwelling and its sur- 
roundings were nevertheless not without hints of 
squalor. The farmyard was the heart of the establish- 
ment, with the house, the cowshed, and the various 
lesser buildings hemming it in on three sides. Its 
slimy, ill-odored area was the picking-ground of the 
hens and ducks and of a flitting flock of sparrows, and 
it was the gathering-place for all sorts of wrecked 
vehicles, broken tools, and other rubbish. Several 
children were running about the farmyard when I 
entered it, and not far from the house door twenty 
or thirty calves were feeding from a trough. 

While I was regarding the confusion of this well- 
populated enclosure, a poor old woman came groaning 
in at the gate, hobbled along to the porch, and rapped 
at the door. The housewife promptly appeared, and 
without a word stepped past her caller across the yard 
to the granary. She soon returned with as many 
potatoes as she could carry in her hands, and emptied 
them into the old woman's apron. This garment was 
held by its wearer gathered up into a sacklike receptacle 
which was already half full before the potatoes were 
added. Apparently the old woman was a beggar doing 
a wholesale business. She bestowed a mumbled bless- 
ing on her benefactor and went groaning away. 



82 The Isle of the Shamrock 

I learned later that mendicants of her class are an 
accepted Irish institution. Quite a number of them 
make their homes in Kilmallock, and each day leave 
their hovels to scour the surrounding country, only 
taking care not to go over the same route too often. 
But the most "numerous beggars are those without 
fixed abode. Such usually spend their nights at some 
peasant's cottage, sleeping by the fire. In the morn- 
ing they are perhaps invited to share the family break- 
fast, or, if not that, will at least be allowed the use 
of the fireplace, to cook whatever they may choose to 
draw from the supplies that they are carrying along. 

The appeals of the beggars are rarely refused, and 
at one place they get potatoes, at another a little 
bread, or flour, or tea, or a bit of money. Their 
gatherings are in some instances considerable, and they 
often have a surplus to sell, and may even accumulate 
a certain wealth. The householders near Kilmallock 
expected one or two appeals every day, as a matter of 
course. Some of the beggars are able-bodied ne'er- 
do-wells ; but probably the majority are no longer 
capable of supporting themselves by labor, and are 
simply endeavoring to keep for a little longer out of 
the dreaded workhouse. 

Their antipathy to the workhouse, as far as con- 
cerned that at Kilmallock, was largely a matter of 
sentiment, and not founded on any reasonable fear of 



In the Golden Vale 83 

bodily hardship ; for the buildings provided for the un- 
fortunates were substantial and clean, and the inmates 
were well treated. They are given plenty of bread, 
milk, and potatoes, and they have their tea, and twice 
a week meat is furnished. But in the poorer districts 
of Ireland the workhouse conditions are not so favor- 
able. Taxes cannot be raised to properly house or 
feed the numerous paupers, and they are very wretched, 
and the sick often have no one to care for them but 
feeble old women inmates of the institutions. 

Like most farmhouses of the region, the Lynch 
dwelling had a thatch roof, and was low and primitive. 
That the kitchen was the family living-room was pro- 
claimed by the sloppiness of its rough, cobble floor, 
and its general disorder. All of one side was taken 
up by a wide, open fireplace, with an accompaniment 
of pots, kettles, shoes, and other litter. Conspicuous 
in a convenient corner of the room stood the swill- 
barrel. On the walls were hung pieces of harness, a 
tin lantern, a slab of bacon, and a variety of clothing, 
cooking utensils, and farm tools. The only touch 
of the aesthetic I observed consisted in a decorative 
arrangement of dishes on the dresser. 

I passed through the house to the side opposite 
that which opened on the farmyard, and there found 
a plot of grass, a few flowers, trees, and shrubs, and a 
tidy garden. This side of the building was its front, 



84 The Isle of the Shamrock 

in the polite acceptation of the term ; but the mildewed 
door and the mossy pavement leading from it, half 
overgrown with vagrant weeds sprouting undisturbed 
in the crevices, showed plainly that the " front " might 
nearly as well not have existed. 

A few days after my visit at the Lynch dwelling a 
chance shower drove me to shelter in another farm- 
house, where a tall, white-capped old woman wiped 
off a backless kitchen chair for me with her apron, 
and after remarking she hoped the weather was not 
" broke," went on about her work. A brisk fire burned 
within the fireplace, and over it hung a big iron kettle, 
from which wisps of steam were puffing out around 
the edges of its cover. A young woman sat beside 
the fire turning an iron wheel, and I at first imagined 
she was churning, and watched her for some time 
before I discovered that, instead, she was working a 
bellows. Coal is the usual fuel in the Golden Vale, 
but it is burned on the bare hearth, not in a grate, 
and this peculiar bellows, blowing the air through a 
pipe that runs under the flagging-stones, is necessary 
to fan the fire into brightness and heat. 

For baking purposes peat, or " turf," as it is called, 
is bought from " hawkers," who peddle it on carts 
from house to house. It comes in blocks, each three 
or four times the size of a brick ; and a score, with 
an extra one thrown in for good measure, cost six- 




Work in a Potato Field 



In the Golden Vale 85 

pence. Ovens are only found in "gintlemin's" houses. 
Farmers and cottagers bake their bread in a " bastable," 
— a low, flat kettle with a heavy cover. It is set on 
the coals and burning turf piled on top, and at the 
end of an hour the " cake," in a single, broad, round 
loaf, is baked. The bread is rather solid, but it is 
wholesome, and not unpleasant to the taste. 

The rain was soon over, and I was preparing to go, 
when I happened to mention that I was from America. 
The house inmates had been friendly, but not espe- 
cially sociable. Now there was a change, and the old 
woman, intent on keeping me a little longer, declared 
that I must not walk too much. " It is not good to 
do so, and the weather soft like," said she. "Sit 
down, sir, and perhaps you would take a glass of 
milk, sir." 

The backless chair which I had been occupying was 
pushed out of the way, and the best in the room was 
set forth — one so recently purchased that the shine 
of the varnish was still apparent on it. Then the 
old woman got me a cup of rich, sweet milk, and sat 
down to ask questions about " the States," and to tell 
about friends she had there. Lastly she spoke of a 
son who had crossed the Atlantic, long, long years 
ago ; and the tears came to her eyes while she related 
how he had sickened and died there. Ah ! America 
was a fine country, but she did not think it was a 



86 The Isle of the Shamrock 

healthy one. The old woman's interest was not greater 
than that of the girl by the fire, who herself intended 
to emigrate to America the next year. 

Those who go, rarely return, though stragglers come 
on visits. The few prodigals who settle permanently 
in their native island usually bring money with them 
and go into business. Most often they are impelled 
by the desire to buy back some little shop or other 
interest that has been a pride of their families in the 
past, but which has been lost through misfortune. 

I was at Kilmallock over Sunday, and in the early 
morning walked out to a country parish some miles 
distant to attend eight o'clock mass. The church was 
a plain, spireless structure, ungraced by vines and un- 
shadowed by trees, standing in the midst of a hilltop 
group of thatched cottages. Neighboring it on one 
side was a creamery, and I could hear the hum of 
machinery and the puff of steam the same as if it had 
been a week day. Many milk carts were hitched along 
the wayside near the creamery and in front of the houses 
adjoining the church, and there were numbers of other 
vehicles, — traps, jaunting-cars, and heavy farm carts, 
with their accompanying donkeys, mules, and horses 
of all sizes, colors, and conditions. The aspect of the 
village was more suggestive of a market or fair than a 
religious gathering, and this secular look was further 
emphasized by a canvas-covered booth open for busi- 



In the Golden Vale 87 

ness beside the churchyard gate. Here were sold 
prayer-books and other Catholic publications, beads, 
crosses, and a variety of gaudy church emblems and 
images. This ecclesiastical mart was, however, tem- 
porary, and would be discontinued at the end of a fort- 
night's special services that were being held. 

The interior of the church had a row of pews along 
the walls on either hand, unpainted, battered, and dingy, 
and in the broad aisle between was a line of backless 
benches. All the seats were full when I arrived, and 
many people stood in the narrow passages and in the 
open space at the rear. It was evident that the women 
had on their Sunday garments, but many of the men 
wore their ordinary work clothes and heavy, dirty shoes, 
just as they had come from the milk wagons. 

Up before the altar was a priest in a gorgeous yel- 
low gown, with an attendant robed in black and white. 
I was hardly able to catch a word in the whole service, 
as far as the priest's part was concerned, for he began 
his sentences with a mumble which faded rapidly away 
into a nearly inaudible murmur. Indeed, I thought it 
all very perfunctory and meaningless, yet I could not 
help feeling that it was satisfying to the congregation. 
Their devout attentiveness never flagged, and they 
conned their prayer-books with exemplary persistence. 
It seemed to me that most of the time was spent in 
kneeling. I tried to accommodate myself to the 



88 The Isle of the Shamrock 

routine of the service, but my knees gave out on 
the hard stone floor, and I had to stand, at the risk 
of appearing heretical. There was no organ and no 
singing. Country communities are not musical. Their 
churches have no choirs, and the old-fashioned people 
object to the introduction of an organ, because they 
think its " noise " is not religious, and that it is op- 
posed to a genuine spirit of worship. 

After mass came communion, and the worshippers in 
relays went up to the front seat and knelt while the 
priest gave them each an indistinct blessing, and ad- 
ministered a wafer from a goblet that he carried. This 
goblet his assistant refilled as often as the supply ran 
low. The communicants did not touch the wafers 
themselves, but opened their mouths, and the priest 
placed one on each awaiting tongue. That the wafers 
are the real body and blood of Christ the communi- 
cants did not doubt; and if a crumb dropped, some 
one was pretty sure to pick it up and eat it, to 
get the benefit of its mystic virtues, whatever those 
might be. 

When the worshippers left the church, those who had 
teams betook themselves to their milk carts and other 
vehicles, and drove away, while the rest scattered down 
the roads and lanes on foot. I mentioned to a man 
of the latter class that the congregation was a very full 
one ; but he said, " Ah, no ! that is nothing at all, sir. 



In the Golden Vale 89 

to what there will be at the eliven o'clock mass. There 
will be five times as many thin." 

I did not think my knees were equal to another 
service, and I returned to Kilmallock. In the after- 
noon the town was well-nigh deserted by the male 
population, who went harum-scaruming off somewhere 
in long-cars, jaunting-cars, and odds and ends of other 
vehicles, to see the favorite Irish game of hockey 
played, or, as they expressed it, " to see the hurrling 
match." Sunday is a holy day only during mass. The 
rest of the time the people spell it holiday, and are 
ready for whatever recreation offers. They go fishing, 
they go in swimming, they play on the village greens, 
and you may, on occasion, see a crowd blackening the 
walls of a country lane for half a mile, watching a bowl- 
ing match. 

Toward evening, while walking on the town out- 
skirts, I accosted an elderly farmer who was standing 
meditating in his potato patch, with his hands beneath 
his coat-tails. 

" God save ye," said he, in response to my greeting. 

" We are going to have a fair day to-morrow, are we 
not ? " I questioned. 

" Well, I don't know thin," he replied. " I don't 
like the look o' thim castles " — pointing to some 
snowy cloud-banks on the horizon. 

We changed to the subject of potatoes — "spuds" 



90 The Isle of the Shamrock 

or " Murphys " he called them ; and presently he sug- 
gested that I should climb the fence and go with him 
to his house. It was a thick-walled, thatched house 
adjoining an old, ivy-grown tower that had formerly 
been a grist-mill. A stream flowed close by which 
looked peaceful enough, but which Mr. Fennessey — 
that was his name — declared sometimes became a tor- 
rent in the winter, and set back over the banks and 
invaded his home. The family restrained the water 
by banks of earth as well as they could. These, how- 
ever, were not always efi^ective, and the water at times 
flooded the lower floors to the depth of three feet. 
Once the water rose in the night, and the farmer awoke 
in the morning to find his bed afloat and rocking. He 
complained a good deal of the condition of his house, 
and of the landlord's unwillingness to make improve- 
ments. At the same time, except for the flooding, he 
said it was much better than the average house of fifty 
years ago. 

"Ye seldom see a mud house in the prisent," he 
explained ; " but thin they were common. The mud 
part was the walls, which was a mixture of clay, 
rushes, and gravel. A man in his bare feet would 
tread it as it was put up, and ivery time a layer a 
half-yard thick was put on it had to be left for a few 
days to dry. Whin it was high enough it was pared 
down smooth, and 'twas riddy for the roof, which in 



In the Golden Vale 91 

thim days was as like to be turf as thatch, with per- 
haps an ould boiler stuck up through for a chimney. 
The walls wint fast if the roof broke a leak, but so 
long as they was kep'dry they was all right. Mud walls 
that ye see now are whitewashed, and a stranger such 
as you might not know what was underneath. They 
used to be left their natural brown color. The floors, 
thim days, was dirt, and so they are now in our ould 
counthry cottages ; but cement is comin' to be gineral 
in the towns, though that wears uneven, too, after a 
while, and gets broken, in spite of ye." 

We were sitting during this relation in Mr. Fen- 
nessey's kitchen, a small, crowded apartment, whose 
chief articles of furniture were a dresser, several rickety 
chairs, and a table with some black pots huddled 
beneath. A bobtailed hen was picking about under- 
foot, and two dogs were snoozing on the borders of 
the fireplace. 

" This room wad be a big house intirely, in thim 
days I'm tellin' ye of," Mr. Fennessey continued ; " and 
you'd be lucky if there was not props here and yon to 
howld up the rafters, and holes leakin' down, and a 
large family livin' in it, too." 

Of late the poorer hovels in the Golden Vale have 
been largely replaced by cottages built by the county. 
These, though small, are comfortable and substantial. 
There are three rooms below, and, under the peak of 



92 The Isle of the Shamrock 

the roof above, are one or two more, to which ascent 
is made by a narrow stairway very like a step-ladder. 
The rent is one shilling a week, and a half-acre of land 
goes with the cottage, so that the tenants can have their 
own garden and keep a donkey and perhaps a goat or 
a little Kerry cow. What the half-acre patch of land 
lacks in supporting the creatures can be made up by 
feeding them along the highways, and by the foraging 
of the children. Some of this foraging is not very sen- 
sitive to rights in property, and I remember seeing an 
undaunted small boy pulling wisps of hay from the 
outer side of a loaded cart in the publicity of Kilmal- 
lock's principal street. The driver had gone into a 
shop, and now and then the boy paused and peeped 
furtively beneath the wagon, to assure himself that 
the coast was still clear. Finally, with his arms full, 
the ragamuffin scudded for home. 

The cottagers usually keep hens and ducks, and in 
some instances geese and turkeys, and the fowls and their 
eggs are chiefly sold to " egg-hawkers," who go about 
buying them to ship to England. The prices realized 
are not what they might be, for the Irish are only be- 
ginning to learn the relation between price and quality, 
and, as a rule, their fowls are of a small, poor breed. 

" My good man," said Mr. Fennessey, at length, 
" as we have no liquor in the house, would you sit 
with us and have a cup of tea ^ " 




5 



b 



In the Golden Vale 93 

I accepted the invitation, and the wife set the black 
tea-kettle on the coals and turned the crank of the 
creaky bellows. Soon we had gathered around the 
centre table in the best room to a lunch of bread and 
butter and tea. The children waited for second table. 
Only the four youngest of the original thirteen were 
left. The rest had departed from the parental roof, 
and were scattered far and wide over the earth. One 
son was living in California. 

" If you ever go to Los Angels," said my host, 
" hunt up John Fennessey. You just mintion the 
ould folks at Kilmallock, and you will be sure of a 
warrum wilcome." 

Mrs. Fennessey kept my cup replenished, even 
putting in the sugar and stirring it herself. She took 
a more personal interest in my affairs than did her com- 
panion, and early in our converse wanted to know if 
I had " an ould woman " at home. Not till she had 
repeated the question twice did I comprehend that 
she was asking if I had a wife. 

I enjoyed my visit, and I enjoyed the lunch, and 
when I prepared to leave Kilmallock and went to bid 
the Fennesseys good-by, I felt as if I was parting from 
old friends ; and the impression given by the hospi- 
tality of the people all through the Golden Vale was 
most agreeable. They did you a favor as though it 
was for their own pleasure. When I said, " Thank 



94 



The Isle of the Shamrock 



you," I was almost certain of the quick response, 
"And all for nothing, sir. It was no trouble at all." 

In thinking over my experiences, therefore, I con- 
cluded that whatever the section lacked of being like 
its name in landscapes and agricultural affluence was 
more than made up by the sympathetic kindliness of 
its inhabitants. 




VI 



AN IRISH WRITER AND HER HOME 



feS^^^' T" ^ 1 89 1 there was published 

rr-; ^^p^^^ I in DubHn a thin book of 

"^^ ^ poems entitled " Bogland 




Studies," and the author, as an- 
^ nounced by the title-page, was 
J. Barlow. Like most books 
of poems by unknown writers, 
" Bogland Studies " was brought 
out at the author's expense ; but, 
unlike the common run of them, 
the verse was characterized by 
striking originality, refined feel- 
ing, and great aptness and vigor 
of expression. Still the world 
was very full of books, and few 
bought the modest volume. Its 
writer was nearly as unknown as before, when, presently, 
the book fell into the hands of a London editor, who 
read it with such interest that he looked up the name 
on the title-page and wrote a letter to " Mr. J. Barlow." 

95 




96 The Isle of the Shamrock 

Great was his surprise when J. Barlow proved to be 
no Mister at all, but Miss Jane Barlow, daughter of 
a Dublin professor. Forthwith the editor introduced 
Miss Barlow to the literary public, and induced her to 
write a series of short stories in prose. These form 
her " Irish Idylls," so far the best-known book she 
has produced. They deserve to grow in public favor, 
for truer and more entertaining transcripts of peasant 
life we have never had. Yet they will not appeal to 
the masses ; they are too quiet, too simple, too delicate 
in flavor, to stir minds that crave high-seasoned action 
and a plot full of turmoil and mystery. Such stories 
as Miss Barlow's are reserved for the enjoyment of 
those who like sometimes to see nature and life as 
loiterers, and to catch the slighter odors and tints and 
twinklings that escape the person who must go through 
a book on the jump or not at all. The stories lack the 
spice of sensation ; but to the lover of sweet and simple 
realities they are full of interest and sparkle. 

I do not recall anything in imaginative literature that 
deals with life that in itself and in its environment is 
so humble as in the several books written by Miss 
Barlow. The scene of her stories is always the Con- 
nemara district of the Irish west coast, a forbidding 
region of water-soaked bogland, sombre loughs, and 
stony mountains. In the forlorn little villages on this 
bogland live the people she describes. Lisconnel is 



An Irish Writer and her Home 97 

the place that appears oftenest in her stories — a hamlet 
often houses, counting one with the roof fallen in. It 
is seven miles to a neighbor village. No one in Lis- 
connel owns a cow, such is the poverty of the inhabit- 
ants, and the live-stock is limited to a few goats, pigs, 
and chickens ; even these disappear speedily in bad 
seasons. The cabins are small, their furnishings meagre, 
wind and frost find easy entrance through their un- 
chinked stone walls, and the rain drips through the 
rush-thatched roofs. The wet fields, fenced off" by 
stone walls into tiny squares about the houses, yield 
scant crops of potatoes and oats. The pinch of pov- 
erty makes itself felt in every household, and hunger 
is a not infrequent visitor. 

Could one have more scanty material for story- 
writing? Yet, as the Irish say in one of their 
proverbs, " There are plenty of things beside turf to 
be found in a bog ; " and one of the things that 
Miss Barlow finds there is human nature. The sym- 
pathetic reader sees himself in these humble villagers, 
and he feels a strange interest in their struggles, their 
loves, their sacrifices and heroism, their quaint con- 
versations and views of the world ; and he could not 
be more vividly impressed with the loneliness of the 
bog and the cheer of its sunshine and the frowning 
frequency of its showers were he himself a bogland 
dweller. The descriptions are indeed all so con- 



98 The Isle of the Shamrock 

vincing it was something of a shock to me to learn 
that Lisconnel was not a real village at all, and that the 
author neither lived in nor anywhere near such a place. 

Miss Barlow's home is on the other side of the 
island, at Raheny, a suburb of Dublin, four miles out 
of the city. Raheny is a shapeless, straggling little 
hamlet with parklike, tree-dotted fields round about. 
It has two inns, two churches, the same number of 
schoolhouses, and a single shabby little shop. On the 
day I was there the most notable human feature of 
the village was a row of men near its chief inn, sitting 
or standing along a house wall. They were laborers 
waiting to be hired. It did not seem a very energetic 
way of finding work, but it saved shoe-leather and 
perhaps nervous wear and tear, and it is the Irish 
custom. 

The station-master said there was no middle class in 
the village — they had only "swells and laborers." The 
dwellings seemed to bear out his statement; for they 
were either the retiring homes of gentlefolk, with lawns 
and shrubbery about, shut away from the gaze of the 
street-passers by high stone walls, or the barren little 
cottages of the peasantry. The cottages congregated 
thickest along a small stream that ran through the 
village centre. Many of them had thatch roofs, often 
weedy and green-mossed. Their surroundings were 
very untidy, and quite in keeping with the dilapidated 



An Irish Writer and her Home 



99 



aspect of the buildings themselves. Several dogs were 
lazing about the doorways, scratching at the fleas that 
infested their scraggy coats. One of them, which 
looked rather younger and brighter than the rest, was 
sitting on a bag near a cottage doorway. This luxury 
of having a seat suggested that he was the household 
pet ; and, by way of introducing myself to the woman 
of the house, I remarked, " That's a nice dog you 
have." 

" He's more than nice — he's good," was her proud 
response. 

I had not intended my words to be taken too liter- 
ally, and I did not pursue the subject further, but 
looked into the woman's kitchen. It had a rough 
and not overclean dirt floor. The walls were of rudely 
plastered stones, partly hidden, as was the ceiling, by 
newspapers pasted together, forming a queer sort of 
tapestry. It was a tiny room, yet there were in it two 
rickety beds, some scantily filled shelves of crockery, 
several chairs, and various other household belongings. 
Not much spare standing room was left. 

The hens of the neighborhood wandered in and out 
of the cottage doors, and with the other fowls held 
conventions around the house fronts, very much as 
they pleased. While I was looking in at the living- 
room of the woman who owned a " good " dog, a boy 
drove up a flock of turkeys. They stopped in front 

Lore. 



lOO The Isle of the Shamrock 

of the cottage, and the woman came out with a pan of 
feed. She knelt down before them and doled out the 
food, and saw that they all had a fair chance, at the 
same time giving a smart rap every once in a while at 
her neighbor's ducks that showed a tendency to steal 
up and grab for a share. 

The cottage dwellers had no water supply in their 
homes, but went for it either to the convenient stream 
or to an iron pump in the middle of the street. The 
women were mostly frowzy-headed and slovenly, and 
the children were ragged and dirty. But what the little 
folk lacked in immaculateness of attire and person was 
more than made up by their liveliness and piquant 
individuality. They had nothing of the shyness of 
English children. One of them, a small boy, carrying 
a crooked sapling with a line attached, wanted me to 
go down to the stream and see him catch " pinkeens " ; 
and they all showed a good deal of volubility and the 
spirit of investigation. 

I saw one little drama of child life that illustrates 
the methods of child training in general vogue in Ire- 
land — methods not unknown in some other parts of 
the world. It took place in a field back of a cottage 
where two venerable goats were feeding. In the 
shadow of the cottage stood a woman waiting for a 
little boy, who had crawled through the hedge at the 
far side of the field, and now came running toward her 









\j| • 1 * 't - 1 








r 9^ 


i 





HC'N(.RY 



An Irish Writer and her Home loi 

with a bottle hugged tight in his arms. I suppose he 
was returning from some errand. Then, in the middle 
of the field, there was a false step, a tumble, and a 
smash of glass. The mother started forward and 
picked up a switch, and the boy got up whining and 
began edging away, while the goats looked on in long- 
whiskered surprise. The nearer the mother came, the 
more the little one dodged, and presently he took to 
his heels and ran back of the house with his mother in 
close pursuit. 

Donkey carts were the most frequent vehicles seen 
on the Raheny streets. Both carts and donkeys 
seemed very small, and when a grown man or a 
woman sat perched on the seat, the size of the rider 
seemed quite disproportionate to that of the cart and 
the creature which drew it. But the donkeys were 
sober beasts, and apparently were contented with their 
lot, though I did encounter a single exception — a 
tiny specimen pulling a cart with two young men in 
it up a hill, and braying in a manner distinctly alarm- 
ing and protesting. One donkey, with a lad in charge, 
was drawing a load of sour-smelling distillery waste 
about the village. The stuff looked like wet sawdust, 
but the boy said it was barley, and that he sold it a 
pailful at a time, to feed hens and pigs. 

Both the village schools were supervised by the 
government, but one was conducted under Protestant 



I02 The Isle of the Shamrock 

auspices and the other was controlled by the Catholics. 
The Protestant building was neat and modern. The 
Catholic schoolhouse, on the contrary, was dismal and 
old-fashioned. It was low and broad, with gray plas- 
ter walls. Within were two rooms — one for the 
boys, one for the girls — each in charge of a separate 
teacher. The girls' room was nearest the street, and, 
as the door was open, I went in. 

Thirty or forty scholars were present, between the 
ages of four and twelve. The room was of fair size, 
with grimy, whitewashed walls and long, unpainted 
benches. Near the entrance was a small, much- 
battered organ and a table for the teacher's use, 
behind which was the room's one chair. The table 
drawers were gone, and it was as cheap and shaky a 
specimen of a table as I have ever seen. The thin, 
middle-aged woman who presided over the school 
politely offered me the one chair as soon as I entered 
the room, and I carelessly accepted, and nearly lost 
my balance sitting down in it, for the chair toppled 
sideways in a manner to suggest that it had only three 
legs. I braced myself accordingly, and as soon as the 
teacher looked away I took advantage of the oppor- 
tunity to slide my hand back and investigate. The 
fourth leg was there, after all, and the only trouble 
was that it was an inch short at the bottom, making 
the chair a sort of primitive rocker. 



An Irish Writer and her Home 103 

The teacher gave all her time to entertaining me, 
and turned the school over to three of her oldest 
pupils, each in charge of a section. The youngest 
section, composed of infants, adjourned to the back of 
the room, where they arranged themselves in a double 
semicircle and began picking out words on a wall 
chart. They were aided in their efforts by the girl 
monitor, armed with a long stick which was intended 
for a pointer, but which she did not confine strictly to 
that use. This girl was nervously disposed, and when 
a child missed and had to go to the foot she would 
take the delinquent by the shoulders and push it 
along to its new place with quite unnecessary energy. 
If a child's answer came too slowly, she would brisken 
its ideas by a tap from her stick. Once, when one of 
her charges was out of order, she gave the culprit a 
slap with her hand. 

Another section of the school sat in a group among 
the seats, and the girl who acted as their teacher stood 
facing them between a bench and desk. 

The third section were on their feet gathered about 
a girl who was sitting on a bench at the side of the 
room with her back against the wall, eating a lunch. 
The children in her care had slates in their hands, 
and were doing " sums." 

On the whole, the scene in the schoolroom was 
very easy-going, social, and domestic, but I was not 



I04 The Isle of the Shamrock 

impressed that the children were making any very 
determined progress in the acquisition of knowledge. 
As for their surroundings, they were rather cheerless 
and depressing. The only attempt at brightness in 
the room was a row of colored prints that the teacher 
had pinned up on the wall. 

After a time I carefully rose from my crippled chair 
and bade the teacher " Good day," with the intention 
of paying a visit to the boys' room. I went around to 
the other side of the building and rapped. No re- 
sponse. I rapped again, and failed to attract attention 
as completely as I had before. I could see the chil- 
dren through the keyhole, but there was such a clatter 
of voices and buzz of lips that, though I rapped two 
or three times more, I did not make myself heard. 
This was too much, and I abandoned them to their 
uproar and came away. 

I thought, from what I saw of the village, that 
Raheny held plenty of raw material for a writer who 
made peasant life her field in fiction, and it seemed 
odd that Miss Barlow should neglect this for distant 
Connemara. Miss Barlow's home is about five min- 
utes' walk from the station, in what is known as " The 
Cottage." As you approach it, you glimpse over the 
intervening street wall a long thatched roof shadowed 
by tree-foliage. I wondered if it could be that 
Miss Barlow lived under that humble thatch. After 



An Irish Writer and her Home 



105 



all, it would not be out of keeping, considering the 
subjects she chooses to write of and the quiet manner 
in which she tells her stories. But a little farther on 
I came to a mildly imposing gateway, with a little 
shadowed lodge at one side. Thence a tidy driveway 
led to a near mansion. It was not a pretentious man- 
sion, but just of comfortable size, with a homelike air 
about its vine-clad walls that was attractive. The 
structure was rather unusual. It was in three parts, 
beginning near the street with the low thatched cot- 
tage, which was followed in the middle by a larger 
and more recent structure, while at the rear it rose 
in a modern dwelling of comparatively imposing pro- 
portions. It was like some slow vegetable growth 
pushing out successively into newer and larger forms, or 
as if here was a house with its own father and grand- 
father under its protection on the ancestral grounds. 

The cottage section of the house is inconvenient, 
but its age and associations protect it. Miss Barlow 
acknowledges a good deal of fondness for it, and pains 
are taken to get it rethatched when the roof gets bad. 
The thatch, in the accumulation of many renewals, has 
grown to a ponderous thickness, and makes the cottage 
look like some vast mushroom. There were holes in 
the roof torn by rats and birds that build their nests 
in it, and a young plane tree had shot up from one of 
its depressions to a height of two feet. But my visit 



io6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

shortly antedated the coming of a thatcher, under 
whose hand I suppose these touches of picturesqueness 
disappeared. 

Indoors the house is what any gentleman's of mod- 
erate means might be, except that the upstairs parlor 
is given a churchlike air by a pipe organ filling one 
end of the room. This is used by Professor Barlow, 
the author's father. 

The station-master mentioned to me that all the 
members of the family were very nice people, and 
" not swells, if they did belong to the gentry." He 
had read some of Miss Barlow's books, and he was 
quite appreciative ; for he declared she " got the talk 
of the Connemarese fine." One of the village women 
with whom I spoke, and who said she frequently did 
scrubbing at the Barlows', was, like the station-master, 
a warm admirer of the family, and agreed with him 
about the merits of" Miss Jane's" books. The com- 
ment of these two critics was not praise that meant 
they caught the atmosphere and delicate flavor of the 
stories, but which showed that the life portrayed in the 
printed pages was most accurately interpreted. 

The stories convey the same sense of reality to 
the stranger who has never seen the country, and as 
he reads he feels that Miss Barlow understands the 
peasant ways and their thought and conversation in 
every detail. I was curious to know how she acquired 



An Irish Writer and her Home 



107 



this minute knowledge. It seems that the family took 
a house one season and lived for a summer on the 
Connemara coast, and it was then that Miss Barlow 
absorbed the impressions of local color and character 
which she uses in her stories with such fidelity. One 
would suppose she must have been very intimate with 
the people themselves, she gives such full reports of 
their work, their homes, and their speech ; yet this 
was not the case. What she knows she has gained 
mostly from outside observation, and the rest is imagi- 
nation. But wherever she gets it, the bogland life of 
her books has the ring of truth, and it lingers long in 
the reader's mind, a sweet and fascinating memory. 






^'/ 














l''lfe^ 



M^^^SMiiliSM^MMMMMMlmmmMm 



^,M 



VII 



THE HIGHLANDS OF DONEGAL 





'HEN I left Raheny 
I journeyed to the 
rough mountains 
and glens of the northwest, 
and the only pause worthy 
of note on the way was at 
Drogheda, a town which in 
itself is dull and uninterest- 
ing, but has unusual historic 
attraction. A few miles to 
the west the Protestant King 
William defeated the Catholic 
King James in the famous 
"Battle oftheBoyne." This 
battle, of triumphant or bitter 
memory to every inhabitant 
of Erin, according to the individual's religious sym- 
pathies, is not allowed to sink into oblivion, but is 
fought over again in the more partisan sections of 

io8 




Drogheda — An Old Town Gate 



The Highlands of Donegal 109 

Ireland with each recurring anniversary ; and unfortu- 
nately the monument erected on the banks of the 
Boyne is inscribed in words calculated to keep alive 
rather than to soothe and dispel the irritation. It 
reads : — 

"Sacred to the glorious memory of King William 
the Third, who, on the ist of July, 1690, passed the 
river near this place to attack James the Second at the 
head of a Popish army, advantageously posted on 
the south side of it, and did, on that day, by a single 
battle, secure to us, and to our posterity, our liberty, 
laws, and religion. In consequence of this action 
James the Second left his kingdom and fled to 
France." 

What makes Drogheda most notable, however, to 
the delver in history, is the dismal tale of its siege by 
Cromwell in 1649. ^^ '^^^ defended by three thousand 
English Royalist soldiers, and when their opponents 
forced an entrance into the town, nearly all of them 
were, by Cromwell's orders, put to the sword. The 
officers, of a remnant which surrendered, were knocked 
on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers was 
killed, while the rest were shipped for the Barbadoes. 

The old fortifications of the town have mostly dis- 
appeared, though there remain portions of the walls, 
and a certain breach in them is pointed out as the one 
through which Cromwell's troopers made their en- 



no The Isle of the Shamrock 

trance. The finest bit of ancient architecture is the 
lofty gray tower of one of the old town gates, which 
is so well preserved it could hardly have been more 
perfect in its prime. 

After leaving Drogheda I went on to Strabane, 
whence a narrow gauge railroad took me as far as 
Finntown, a diminutive bogland village among the 
mountains of Donegal, and left me stranded there. 
I had expected to drive on over the hills to Dunglow 
on the coast, fifteen miles distant. But a private con- 
veyance was not obtainable in Finntown, and the only 
public one was a slender jaunting-car that met the 
train. This already had six passengers when I sought 
it out, and besides, there was a vast heap of luggage, 
not to mention the driver. With cheerful Irish op- 
timism this Individual declared he still had room for 
me ; but his two-wheeled skeleton of a vehicle looked 
to be In imminent danger of a breakdown already. 
How the single horse could draw such a load was a 
problem, and I preferred to leave the jaunting-car to 
its fate, while I spent the rest of the day in seeing 
something of the region where I then was, on foot. 

It was early In the afternoon, cold and windy, and 
gloomy with the shadows of threatening gray clouds. 
The country was one of bogs and rocks, that here and 
there on favoring slopes gave way to little patches of 
green fields alternating with plots of newly turned 




Carrying Manure to the Fields 



The Highlands of Donegal 1 1 1 

earth. The houses were low, one-story buildings, 
rarely containing more than two rooms, and of the 
rudest construction throughout. Roofs were invari- 
ably of thatch, criss-crossed with ropes of twisted hay 
that were either tied to stones dangling in a continu- 
ous row along the eaves, or to pegs driven into the 
house walls. The thatch was sometimes of rushes, 
oat straw, or heather, but most often was of a wispy 
grass cut on the bogs, known as " mountainy stuff." 

The Donegal soil is very wet, and so yielding that 
horses cannot work on it. Few of the farmers own 
even a donkey, and all the work is done in the most 
laborious and primitive fashion, by hand. One man 
with whom I stopped to talk was carrying manure in 
a basket on his back from a great pile in front of his 
house to a near field. His boy, a lad of thirteen, was 
helping with a basket of smaller size. Often the 
women assist in this task. When the land has been 
dotted thickly over with the heaps dumped from the 
baskets, and these have been spread with forks, they 
break up the lumps and distribute the manure more 
evenly with their hands. 

In a plot neighboring the one where I stopped, 
two men were putting the finishing touches on a small 
patch of oats. The ground had been prepared and 
the oats sown, and the men were now digging trenches 
through the field about eight feet apart, and scattering 



112 The Isle of the Shamrock 

the earth as they heaved it out, over the seed. But at 
this particular season more farmers were engaged in 
securing their year's supply of fuel from the " peat 
moss " than in tilling the soil. I could see the lonely 
groups bending to their work on the bog, digging out 
the black sods, and laying them all around the cutting, 
to stay until the completion of the slow two months' 
process of drying. 

Late in the afternoon, as I was passing a hillside 
cottage, my attention was attracted by a curious hum- 
ming sound. The door was open and I looked in. 
There stood a woman, barefoot in spite of the damp 
and chill of the hard clay floor, spinning at a great 
old-fashioned wool wheel — an extremely clumsy affair, 
which had the appearance of having been homemade 
about a hundred years ago. I made my presence 
known, and was invited in to watch the work as long 
as I chose to stay, though the woman expressed 
surprise that I should find it interesting. To her the 
process was commonplace, for, like most persons 
brought up in these Donegal homes, she had been 
used to it from childhood. She said the yarn was to 
be used in part for knitting, and in part was to be made 
into cloth by a weaver who had a loom in a cabin 
down the road. Backward and forward the spinner 
walked, twirling the wheel with her right hand and 
holding a roll of fleecy wool in her left. An attenu- 



The Highlands of Donegal 113 

ated strand connected the roll with the tip of the 
spindle, which, in its rapid revolutions, twisted the 
wool into yarn. The spinner kept the yarn an even 
thickness by her practised sense of touch, and every 
few moments she stopped the wheel, shifted the strand, 
and gave the wheel another whirl to wind up at the 
base of the spindle the yard or two she had finished. 
Then the process was begun over again. 

By the fire sat a wrinkled old woman, with a red 
kerchief on her head, carding. She held one card in 
her left hand, hooks upward, on her knees, and with 
the card in her right pulled and scratched the wool 
into an even fleece. That done, she loosened the 
wool from the hooks, took it between the backs of the 
cards, and rolled it into a light puff a foot long. Her 
supply of material was in a sack by her side, and a 
little two-year old girl, who was pattering about the 
cabin floor, now and then tried to help by pulling some 
of it from the bag and tucking it into the old woman's 
lap. 

The man of the house sat on the opposite side 
of the fireplace smoking, except for occasional inter- 
missions, when he removed his pipe from his mouth 
to spit on the floor. A second child, somewhat older 
than the other, was playing with a frayed patch on 
the leg of the man's trousers. In one corner of the 
room was a rude bed, in another a heap of potatoes. 
I 



114 The Isle of the Shamrock 

Overhead were the smoke -blackened rafters of the 
roof, with certain cross-beams, sticks, and lines inter- 
vening, from which were suspended all sorts of house- 
hold miscellany, including several of the brown bags 
of wool awaiting spinning. One feature of the room, 
that seemed out of keeping with the rest of the litter, 
was a modern sewing-machine of expensive make. A 
tin kerosene lamp was fastened against the wall, and 
the man said I would find such a lamp in most homes, 
though there were families so poor they used no light 
save pitchy fragments of fir wood dug out of the bog. 
Take a pitch splinter as big as one's finger, he ex- 
plained, and it made a very good torch to carry about. 

The old woman carding wanted to know if I spoke 
the Irish. Her tongue accommodated itself hesitatingly 
to English, for Gaelic is the common language of the 
mountains. I, of course, had to confess my linguistic 
inability. That I was from America seemed to me 
sufficient reason for my ignorance, but with her that 
would not pass. She knew well that Irish was talked 
in the States — sure ! many and many had gone to the 
States who knew nothing else — and she was scarce 
able to excuse my delinquency. 

The family could mention a number of relatives 
and former neighbors now resident in America, just as 
can almost every family throughout the length and 
breadth of the island. The Donegal emigrants, how- 



The Highlands of Donegal 115 

ever, return to take up anew the life on the forlorn 
boglands with a frequency probably unequalled in any 
other section. I wonder that they should, for, at best, 
they can gain only a meagre support ; but they have a 
deep attachment for their native soil, and I suppose 
they miss their customary hardships and the music of 
the Irish language. It is generally thought by their 
old neighbors that their foreign sojourn has done them 
no good. They do not take to the heavy manual 
labor as kindly as before, and they give themselves 
airs in their Yankee clothes. Not till every shred of 
these clothes is gone does the returned traveller become 
entirely normal, and begin to take his proper place in 
the bogland world. 

I spent the night at Finntown's lone hotel, a big 
barren structure of gray stone, overlooking a little 
lough, beyond which rose some bleak, dark mountain 
ridges. The hotel depended on its bar and a small 
shop for a livelihood, and not on stray travellers. 
From the dining room window the foreground of the 
view was mainly composed of a stack of peat just 
across the road, with a generous accompaniment of 
rubbish. The dining room's chief articles of furniture 
were a dirty lounge, a few rickety chairs, and a round 
table covered with a scant square of oilcloth. The 
less said about the floor the better. On the mantel 
were two silent clocks. Such clocks, or those that 



ii6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

kept time on an erratic plan of their own, were com- 
mon in Irish hotels, but I did not often find two on 
the same shelf. 

My evening meal was hardly more prepossessing 
than the room. There was some questionable butter 
with no butter knife ; a bowl of coarse-grained sugar 
crystals with no spoon ; and bacon and eggs likewise 
spoonless. The single knife and fork with which I 
ate and the spoon which accompanied my tea were 
apparently considered sufficient for all purposes. The 
knife was of steel, with a wooden handle, and the 
fork of "silver" worn down to the bare metal under- 
neath, and its tines deformed into the semblance of 
corkscrews. I had my doubts about the cleanliness 
of the dishes. Besides, the bacon was half done, dread- 
fully salt, and floating in grease. The tea might have 
been willow leaves, the hot water tasted of the bog, 
and, though the bread was passable and the diminutive 
portion of milk vouchsafed was sweet, the meal as a 
whole was decidedly uninviting. 

The house upstairs looked like an unfinished bar- 
racks, and my chamber had sheathed walls and ceiling, 
paintless and wholly unornamented. The one window 
was uncurtained, and the floor was without a carpet or 
rugs. That the room was ordinarily used by some 
member of the hotel household seemed evident from 
the presence in one corner of a shrine of packing boxes. 




Carding Wool 



The Highlands of Donegal 117 

surmounted with a crockery image of the Mother 
Mary holding the infant Christ in her arms. A soap 
box at the base of the shrine projected to form a con- 
venient kneeling place. The bed was as dubious as 
the rest of the hotel belongings, yet, thanks to my 
afternoon's tramping, I slept as well as if my surround- 
ings had been palatial. 

Rain was falling in frequent showers the next morn- 
ing, and the wind blew in a chilling gale. I started out 
in one of the brighter intervals, but had not gone far 
when a fierce scud drove me to beg shelter at a wayside 
hovel. I might as well have gone into an ancient cave 
dwelling, the gloom of the interior was so deep. After 
all, was I in a human habitation or a henhouse? Sense 
of smell said the latter, though odors were somewhat 
mixed, and when sight returned to my at first blinded 
eyes this impression was strengthened. A wet, scrubby 
turkey stood drying and warming itself in front of the 
peat fire glowing low on the rude hearth. Close by, a 
hen was sitting in a box, and, a little more retiring, 
a second hen was comfortably established among the 
tumbled rags of a ruinous bed. On the uneven dirt 
floor a third hen was picking about with an industrious 
family of chickens, and later other hens, turkeys, and 
several ducks wandered in from outdoors. Even with- 
out these feathered occupants the room was distressing 
in its clutter and grime. Up above hung no end of 



Ii8 The Isle of the Shamrock 

duds and wreckage, while below was a chaos of bags, 
peat fragments, broken furniture, farm tools, and 
household implements. I thought I would rather 
live in an American stable. 

A tall tatterdemalion of a man had given me a chair, 
and found another for himself. From behind him a 
small boy in a long-sleeved coat, apparently inherited, 
watched me furtively. By the fireside squatted a 
woman knitting some coarse men's socks. Presently 
in a lull of the storm a barefoot little girl came noise- 
lessly in at the door. She was not one of the house- 
hold, and she crept along the wall until she reached a 
tiny window that looked out on the street. Then I 
noticed that a few dusty jars of candy and some other 
small wares were displayed there. The girl wanted a 
penny's worth of motto candy, and the boy who had 
gone to the window with her took down the jar she 
pointed out and carried it to his mother by the fire- 
place. The woman poured out the required amount 
of candies into her hand, and exchanged with the 
girl for the penny, and the boy carried the jar back. 
As he replaced it in the window, however, he slyly 
abstracted one of the sweets and slipped it into his 
mouth. 

The housewife was knitting for a shopkeeper in a 
town " six miles over the mountain," who acted as 
agent for some concern in Scotland. The Scotch firm 



The Highlands of Donegal 119 

furnished the yarn, and she got a fresh bundle at the 
shop as often as she finished knitting her former 
supply and carried the socks to be shipped to Scot- 
land. She received for her work three halfpence a 
pair, and nearly always took up the money due in 
trade. Some of the remoter of these Donegal knitters 
lived fully thirty miles from the shop which gave out 
the work. They, as well as those who lived nearer, 
made the journeys to it and back on foot, with packs 
on their backs containing the socks or the yarn, accord- 
ing as they were going or returning. If it was neces- 
sary to be absent from home more than one day, they 
usually stayed over night with friendly wayside folk. 
Often they travelled in parties often or twelve, and in 
pleasant weather would only stop toward evening at 
some house to refresh themselves with hot tea, and 
then would keep on all night. 

The shower which had been the occasion of my 
seeking shelter at length ceased, and I had left the 
hut and was walking along the road, when a young 
man overtook me and began to ask questions as to 
my business. My answers did not satisfy him, and it 
was plain he was suspicious and excited. Finally he 
boldly accused me of working for the government. 
It was of no avail to deny the charge. He was sure — 
he declared he had been to Australia and all over the 
world, and he knew 1 He had had his misgivings of 



I20 The Isle of the Shamrock 

me as soon as I came to Finntown, and now his ill 
opinion was confirmed, and he would trace me ! 

So we parted, and I judged from the tenor of his 
remarks that when the tracing had been done some- 
thing would happen. Later I inquired the reason for 
this flurry, and was told that strangers sometimes wan- 
dered among the mountains searching for valuable 
minerals, and that they were secretive concerning their 
object, or did not satisfactorily explain their actions to 
the understanding of the natives, who therefore have 
come to look on them as emissaries of the government. 
The peasantry have a keen antipathy to England and 
its rule, and these spies, as they call them, are subject 
to a good deal of dislike. 

The Donegal folk of this particular region have had 
some very unfortunate encounters with governmental 
power, and their bitterness, whether just or not, is 
natural. It was in the neighboring Glen Veagh that 
occurred forty years ago one of the most distressing 
tragedies of Irish life, in its relations between landlords 
and tenantry, of which we have record. An estate in 
this glen had been recently bought by a Mr. Adair. 
He was, I believe, a kindly man with the best inten- 
tions as regards his treatment of his tenants, but he 
had the ill luck almost at once to come into collision 
with them. It began with his shooting on a moun- 
tain over which another landlord claimed the sporting 



The Highlands of Donegal 121 

rights. The peasantry took sides against Mr. Adair, 
and regarded him as a usurper ; and one day they 
came forth in a body to the disputed shooting-ground 
and turned him off. 

This resulted in a series of lawsuits, and Mr. 
Adair was greatly irritated by the opposition he en- 
countered and the delays in obtaining what he believed 
was justice. Meanwhile he had bought more property, 
until he owned a tract of ninety square miles, and he 
undertook to stock the mountains with Scotch sheep. 
As an outcome, the bogs were strewn with dead mutton. 
Accusations were brought against the tenants, and they 
were compelled to part with their meagre goods to pay 
for sheep that often, at least, had died of exposure 
to the weather. But Mr. Adair was convinced that 
the people were banded together to do him injury, and 
when, in the late autumn, his manager was found dead 
on Derry Beagh Mountain, and no evidence forth- 
coming to show who had committed the crime, he 
decided to make an example of this pestilential com- 
munity. 

Accordingly, the following spring, he served notices 
of ejectment on all the tenantry of the district. Every 
effort was made to dissuade him, for to exile several 
hundred souls so summarily from their homes, and in 
many cases from their only available means of liveli- 
hood, meant for them acute suffering. Mr. Adair, 



122 The Isle of the Shamrock 

however, was inflexible, and the sheriff, with two hun- 
dred police and soldiers, took up the task and spent 
three days in dragging men and women out of their 
cabins and levelling their poor huts. The evicted 
tenants hung about the ruins, and many of them slept 
for several nights on the open hillsides. Fortunately, 
the affair was widely noticed, and relief soon came — 
that which was most effectual being a proposal from 
one of the governments in Australia to give free pas- 
sage thither to all who wished to emigrate. Most of 
the homeless peasants eagerly accepted this offer, and 
thus the episode ended. The landlord had at last 
triumphed, and was undisputed master of desolate and 
unhappy Glen Veagh. 

This was a case where the harshness of the proprie- 
tor loses him all sympathy ; but injustice, faults of 
judgment, and feelings of revenge are qualities from 
which the peasantry are no more free than the land- 
lords. The difficulties and perils under which the 
latter labored are ably set forth by Mr. W. S. Trench, 
whose book I have found occasion to quote before. 
The antipathies existing between proprietors and ten- 
ants were most intense about half a century ago. 
What were known as " Ribbon Societies " then held 
sway far and wide, and these dark and mysterious con- 
federacies spread terror and dismay to the hearts of 
both rich and poor, and did much to promote the 



The Highlands of Donegal 123 

absenteeism of wealthy landowners, which was one of 
Ireland's chief sources of complaint. As fate would 
have it, those proprietors who were most anxious and 
earnest for the improvement of tenantry conditions on 
their estates came oftenest under the ban of the Rib- 
bon men ; while the careless, spendthrift, good-for- 
nothing landlord, who hunted and drank and ran in 
debt, and very likely collected exorbitant rents, was 
allowed to live in indolent peace on his domain, pro- 
vided he did not interfere with the time-honored cus- 
toms of subdividing, squatting, and reckless marriages. 

The main object of the Ribbon Leagues was to pre- 
vent landlords, under any circumstances, from depriv- 
ing a tenant of his land. The second object was to 
deter tenants from taking land from which other 
tenants had been evicted. In enforcing these two 
objects, numerous victims, from the titled peer to the 
humblest cotter, fell under the hand of the assassin. 

As the Ribbon Societies were entirely secret and 
amenable to no laws, they did not adhere very 
accurately to the precise objects for which they were 
originally organized. By degrees they assumed the 
position of redressers of all wrongs, real and fancied, 
connected with the management of lajid. 

The initial step in bringing their influence to bear 
was to send threatening notices. Their lack of judi- 
ciousness is shown by the fact that the warnings which 



124 The Isle of the Shamrock 

followed evictions were not confined to cases where it 
was claimed the rent was exorbitant, but were just as 
menacing even if the tenant had refused to pay any- 
rent whatever. 

Mr. Trench mentions seeing a notice announcing 
certain death to a respectable farmer because he had 
dismissed a careless ploughman ; and employers who 
refused to hire laborers, approved by the local Ribbon 
League, were threatened in like manner. Mr. Trench 
himself received a letter illustrated with a coffin, in 
flaring red, and adorned with a death's head and cross- 
bones, promising the most frightful consequences to 
himself and family, if he did not continue in his ser- 
vice a profligate carpenter who had been discharged 
for idleness and vice. 

About the year 1840 Mr. Trench was living in 
County Tipperary, not far from the small town of 
Cloghjordan. The country was very much disturbed 
by the wild deeds of the Ribbon men, and a tradesman 
with whom Mr. Trench constantly dealt had recently 
been barbarously murdered, as had also a local farmer. 
Just why these two had been singled out for punish- 
ment was not at all clear to any one outside the 
Leagues. 

While the excitement concerning these crimes was 
still rife, a most daring raid was made on the home of 
a Mr. Hall, whose mansion was about three miles out- 




Spinning with the Great Wheel 



The Highlands of Donegal 125 

side the town. Several armed men entered his dwell- 
ing on a Sunday morning, when the male members of 
the family were at church, and its only occupants were 
the gentleman's daughters. Mr. Hall was a man of 
considerable fortune and the robbers expected to secure 
a rich booty. In response to their demand that all the 
money the house contained should be turned over 
to them, the young ladies directed the intruders to 
their father's iron chest. This chest the robbers 
lugged out to the lawn, where they tried to force it 
open with crowbars ; but it was very strong and they 
did not succeed. It was too heavy for them to carry 
away, and its treasure, some j[200, remained safe. 
They returned to the mansion now, and took a few 
stands of arms, and the leader went into the parlor 
and asked for liquor. His request was too late, for 
the young ladies, fearing the men might become dan- 
gerous if they got drink, had emptied out of the win- 
dow the contents of a large flask of whiskey that stood 
on the side table, and there was nothing for the ma- 
rauders but water. They soon departed, and then the 
house inmates contrived to send word of what had 
occurred to the church. Help presently arrived, and 
during the afternoon the country round about was 
thoroughly searched in the hope that the robbers 
would be captured. The quest was unsuccessful, but 
at night the police visited some houses of suspicious 



126 The Isle of the Shamrock 

character, and found concealed in them a number of 
men with blackened faces. Their clothing was stained 
with bog mould, and was suggestive of their having 
crouched in a peat cutting on the marshes while the 
search of the afternoon was in progress. They were 
arrested and brought before a magistrate, and four of 
them were ultimately convicted and transported beyond 
the seas. 

Mr. Hall was a kind, amiable, and much-respected 
man, but after this occurrence he became exceedingly 
unpopular and obnoxious to the peasantry. A few 
months later, toward noon of a bright, sunny day in 
May, Mr. Trench was riding along the road in the 
vicinity of Mr. Hall's estate, when he heard a faint 
report as of a gun or a pistol at a little distance in the 
fields. Immediately afterward a laborer came running 
up a lane to meet him, saying, " Oh, sir, Mr. Hall 
has just been shot." 

" Shot ! " cried the gentleman, pulling up his horse. 
" Is he dead ? " 

" Stone dead," was the reply. 

Mr. Trench rode rapidly down the lane to the scene 
of the tragedy, and there on the grass lay his neigh- 
bor's body lifeless, but still warm. Several other gen- 
tlemen arrived shortly, and stood about considering 
what was to be done. Most of them were armed and 
were intent on arresting the murderer, yet they were 



The Highlands of Donegal 127 

utterly helpless, though scarcely a quarter-hour had 
elapsed since the fatal shot was fired. Numbers of 
people had been working all around planting their 
potatoes, and a crowd of them had gathered and were 
looking at the body, and feigning wonder as to who 
could have done the deed. Not one of them would 
tell who the assassin was or whither he had gone, and 
no trace of him could be found. 

Large rewards were offered for his apprehension, 
and at last an accomplice turned informer and the 
guilty man was arrested. A great deal of attention 
was attracted by the trial, and it was largely attended. 
The informer was a dark, desperate-looking man of 
about forty years of age, while the prisoner was much 
younger, pale, slight, and without anything in his coun- 
tenance to indicate ferocity or passion. The story of 
the informer was that he had been hired to commit 
the crime by a farmer on Mr. Hall's estate who had 
been refused some petty demand by his landlord, 
and had concluded, "It would be a good thing to 
rid the country of such a tyrant." 

He gave the witness five pounds, which he shared 
with the prisoner, who agreed to accompany and help 
him. On that fatal day in May, the witness saw Mr. 
Hall walking in the fields with a cane in his hand. 
He slipped his pistol up his sleeve, and stealthily 
approached the unsuspecting landlord until he was 



128 The Isle of the Shamrock 

quite close. But Mr. Hall heard his footsteps, and 
turned round and asked what he wanted. He mut- 
tered some excuse and passed on. Again he stole up 
behind his victim, and again Mr. Hall discovered 
him, though still with no thought that his designs 
were unfriendly. The intending murderer, thus twice 
baffled, now returned to his companion, dashed the 
pistol on the ground, and said with an oath : " I 
see it's unlucky. I will have nothing more to do 
with it." 

At this the young man called the witness a coward, 
took up the pistol, and declared he would use it him- 
self Mr. Hall had continued walking across the 
fields, and the murderer went straight up to him, with- 
out speaking or showing his pistol. Mr. Hall, fancy- 
ing from his manner that he meant mischief, sprang 
back a step or two, and in so doing stumbled over a 
tussock and fell. That was the assassin's opportunity. 
Before the gentleman could get up or recover himself, 
the young man put the pistol close to his head and 
shot him dead on the spot. Then the murderer 
threw his weapon into an adjoining hedge and walked 
quietly away with his hands in his pockets to meet his 
accomplice, and they were in the crowd which gath- 
ered shortly about the body. 

The testimony of the informer was amply corrobo- 
rated, but the jury disagreed and the prisoner was re- 



The Highlands of Donegal 129 

manded to jail. By the peasantry the result of the 
trial was regarded as a decided triumph, the lawless- 
ness of the district increased, and three more murders 
quickly followed. But Mr. Hall's assailant was pres- 
ently again tried — this time by a "Special Commis- 
sion" — and he was convicted. Two weeks later he 
was executed, and for a long time afterward Tipperary 
was quiet. 

I only stayed at Finntown over one night, and at 
noon, shortly after my encounter with the man who 
was going to trace me, I engaged a place on the Dun- 
glow jaunting-car. It was almost as heavily loaded 
as the day before, and three of the passengers were 
women. We were a good while in getting started 
from the station, for there were many articles of lug- 
gage to be packed away and tied on, and the driver 
had a good deal of small business to transact with the 
station master. The showers kept descending every 
few minutes, and in one of these, a ragged old woman, 
with a bag about her head in place of a shawl, and 
with her feet bound up in some pieces of homespun, 
climbed over a wall from the bog and addressed the 
occupants of the jaunting-car. She pulled back her 
sleeves and showed several scars on her arms which she 
said were dog bites, and one of the women passengers 
who, from the fact that she wore a hat, I judged was 
better- to- do than the others, gave the beggar a half- 



ijo The Isle of the Shamrock 

penny. This was accepted thankfully, with voluble 
prayers for the bestowal on the giver of blessings of 
all sorts ; and if these materialized, they were certainly 
cheaply had at the price. 

At length we were off, pursuing a winding road up 
and down an endless succession of rocky hills, with the 
boglands frowning around in every direction. We 
were assailed by frequent windy scuds of rain, but 
there were spells between, when the clouds broke and 
the sunshine stole over the wet moors, and the rain- 
bows arched the distance. It was a lonely land — a 
few grazing cows and sheep, farms at long intervals 
with their tiny, stone-walled fields and lowly dwellings, 
now and then a stream dark with the bog stain, many 
little lakes in the hollows, and never a bush or a tree, 
save occasional stunted and storm-beaten ones rnsar 
the farmhouses. We sometimes met a barefoot woman, 
and once stopped to help a man with an overloaded 
cart whose horse had come to an exhausted stop in 
climbing a long, steep hill. Our driver and the two 
men passengers on the jaunting-car alighted, and by 
pushing behind, we got the stranded horse and cart 
into motion again. The assistance rendered by my 
fellow traveller was, I fancy, more willing than effec- 
tive. His familiarity with the whiskey bottle was 
very evident, and his hands were so unsteady he could 
hardly light his pipe. As we journeyed he swayed 



The Highlands of Donegal 131 

limply backward and forward with the jolts of the car, 
and I was much afraid at first he would tumble off. 
Later, I was afraid he wouldn't ; for he was a nuisance 
with his rambling, unceasing talk, and his drunken 
determination that the passengers should all exactly 
understand his opinions of matters and things. 

About the middle of the afternoon we reached Dun- 
glow, where I found an excellent hotel ; but the place 
itself was a dreary coast town, and I did not feel hke 
lingering in it. There was little traffic, and the pass- 
ing to and fro on the chief street was mainly confined 
to a few carts engaged in conveying seaweed for fertil- 
izer from the shore to the farmlands behind the vil- 
lage. I ought also to mention an old man, who was 
being stoned by some small boys. He had a pail in 
either hand, and made several visits to a stream that 
ran through the town, filled his pails, and then bore 
them slowly away to his home. He was short and 
stooping, and too stiff and aged to give chase to his 
persecutors, and, encumbered by his pails, his only 
resource was angry threats and rumblings of wrath, 
which pleased the lads the more. 

The next morning I went back with the car half- 
way to Finntown, to a little place called Doochary, 
where I engaged lodgings with a bankrupt innkeeper. 
The barroom was officially sealed up, but I got the 
impression that neither the landlord nor his patrons 



132 The Isle of the Shamrock 

went wholly dry on that account. There was a closet 
or Inner room to which he and they retired when there 
was occasion, and whence they reappeared with a sus- 
picious cheerfulness and a telltale moisture about their 
mouths. The people among the hills do not acquiesce 
willingly in government control of the liquor business, 
and they evade the law in more ways than one — 
most often perhaps by illicit manufacture. When you 
see on an early morning far off across the apparently 
deserted bogs a wisp of smoke arising, it is not unlikely 
that marks the place of a still. Drinkers say that a 
glass of " potheen," as the outlawed whiskey is called, 
is worth a pint of such stuff as they get in the towns. 
They can always tell it by its smoky taste, and by a 
slight catching in the throat, produced partly by the 
conditions under which it is made, and partly by its 
comparative newness — for the bogland " shebeens " 
have not facilities for keeping their liquor as long as 
the ripening really requires. 

The drive from Dunglow had been a chilly one, 
with fog and showers, and I sought the hotel kitchen 
and sat down by the turf fire. A barefoot girl was 
puttering around doing the housework, and later a 
barefoot old woman came in and seated herself on a 
low stool beside the fireplace opposite me. Then she 
got out a short clay pipe and began to smoke, and I was 
glad to escape to an apartment upstairs where dinner 



The Highlands of Donegal 133 

had been made ready for me. This room did its best 
to attain a suggestion of elegance by having its win- 
dows draped with lace curtains (soiled and somewhat 
torn) and its floor adorned with a carpet and several 
goat-skin rugs that imparted their own peculiar flavor 
to the stufiy atmosphere. 

My sleeping-place was in an adjoining chamber — a 
sort of closet opening off^ a narrow hall, with no win- 
dows and no daylight save what came in across the 
hall when the door was ajar. Nearly all the floor 
space was monopolized by the bed and a chair with a 
washbowl on it. The hall too had its peculiarities, 
especially in the matter of illumination ; for it was 
customary to temper its evening gloom with the light 
of a lone little candle set on a window sill in a hard- 
ened puddle of its own grease dripped there for the 
purpose, and serving instead of a candlestick. 

Doochary consisted of a few whitewashed two-story 
houses in a group by a little river of hurrying, roily 
water. Heaps of ashes and manure, the wreck of a 
cart and other rubbish, bestrewed the wayside in the 
village centre. Extreme poverty seemed evident, yet 
I noticed that a beggar who made a tour of the place, 
going to each house-door in turn with a business-like 
impartiality and precision, was by no means unsuc- 
cessful. The beggar was an old man in patched and 
faded clothing that looked historic. Though past 



134 The Isle of the Shamrock 

his prime, he was still vigorous and, as one of the vil- 
lagers remarked, " betther able to work than some o' 
thim here that's tryin' to keep a wee holdin'," The 
villager used a Scotch expression in his comment, and 
I often heard Scotch terms used all through Donegal, 
in spite of the fact that the people are purely Irish. 
The explanation is that they get these words from con- 
tact with the Scotch in the richer farming country to 
the east, and in Scotland itself, to which great numbers 
make annual pilgrimages to work during the corn and 
potato harvest. 

One thing I regret having missed in my Donegal 
journeyings was the Doon Well, famed far and wide 
for its miraculous cures. It is not by any means the 
only well of healing in Ireland, but is at present, I 
believe, the most notable. Its situation is peculiarly 
secluded. The nearest town is Kilmacrenan, from 
which it is about three miles distant off on a waste of 
moorland. There you find it, roughly roofed with 
stones, on a level green space under the shadow of a 
rude bluff. A rivulet trickles away from it, and on the 
bank by the streamside, at some remove from the well, 
the pilgrims sit to take off their shoes and wash their 
feet ; for you must go to the fount barefooted. 

But the most interesting adjunct of the well is a 
group of crutches thrust into the sod and left standing 
there by persons who have come crippled and gone 



The Highlands of Donegal 135 

away restored and sound. The sight is the more pic- 
turesque and touching because the crutches are swathed 
in rags — rags that the cripples have worn in sickness, 
and which long exposure to the weather has cleansed 
and softened to tints that are in pleasing harmony with 
the surrounding landscape. 

The healing virtues of the well are not limited to 
those who visit it and drink of its water on the spot, 
and the pilgrims nearly all fill bottles to carry away 
with them, either for further use of their own or for 
ailing friends. The ground itself is consecrated, and the 
prayers offered at the well are believed to be specially 
effective, even where loved ones far across the sea are 
made their subject. No record of cures is kept at this 
humble resort, and how many are benefited is un- 
certain ; but the Irish peasants are excellent subjects 
for faith-healing, and cures, more or less lasting, are 
undoubtedly numerous. 

What I saw of the Irish Highlands after leaving 
Doochary was not essentially different in scenery or 
people from that already described. There were the 
same bogs and sombre loughs and stony mountains, 
and the same low cabins and tiny fields. Small hold- 
ings, subdivided by family inheritance for centuries, 
are the rule, the majority of them under fifteen acres. 
The land is too poor for the peasants to more than 
eke out a miserable existence in the best of times on 



136 The Isle of the Shamrock 

such holdings, and when the crops fail, there is great 
distress. Yet, under ordinary circumstances, so keen 
is the demand for land, that from twenty to thirty 
pounds is readily obtained for the tenant rights of one 
of these little bogland farms. The rentals vary from 
five shillings to three or four pounds. This simply 
pays for the use of the land. The tenants themselves, 
after the custom almost universal in Ireland, must 
erect their own houses, put up their own fences, and 
do all their own draining and reclaiming ; and then, 
when a man has, by his personal exertions, increased 
the value of his holding, the rent is very likely 
raised. 

Still, not all landlords are extortionate, nor are all 
peasants unsophisticated and unequal to the task of 
coping with the landowners and their agents. It is 
said that many farmers do all in their power to appear 
poor ; that they come to pay their rent in their worst 
clothes, and are careful beforehand to get their bank- 
notes changed into small silver, hoping the possession 
of only sixpences and shillings will give such an 
appearance of difficulty in getting the money together, 
as to gain credence for their assertions of poverty. 
Then, with the whole amount due in their pockets, 
they try to get the agent to accept half The case 
has two sides, doubtless, and both parties have their 
troubles, and neither is wholly fair to the other. 



The Highlands of Donegal 137 

One thoughtful observer, with whom I talked, said 
that the greatest evil with which the peasantry have to 
contend is not their hard surroundings or the rents, 
but their tendency to run into debt at the shops. He 
regarded the shops as encouragers of extravagance. 
They have multiplied, until now they are scattered all 
over the country, and are too easily accessible to the 
people, who buy foolish luxuries and squander on 
trinkets and unnecessaries, and live beyond their 
means. They purchase on credit, and many do not 
know what they really owe, and do not dare to ask. 
They are timid in the presence of the shopman, who 
has them in his power, and they buy without saying 
anything of price, only intent on getting the things to 
satisfy their immediate desires. When the boys and 
girls come home in November from service on the 
lowland farms, and the men and young women return 
from Scotland, their wages in part pay the rent, but in 
larger part go to the shopkeepers. Then the accounts 
begin to grow again, and if any balance is carried 
over, a high rate of interest is charged. 

The people live largely on what they raise — pota- 
toes, cabbages, and turnips — but most of them pur- 
chase flour, a small quantity at a time, and bake it 
into bread. Tea, likewise, has of late years become a 
household necessity for old and young. They use 
fish to a considerable extent, and now and then indulge 



138 The Isle of the Shamrock 

in a bit of bacon. When the potatoes are gone, the 
poorer folk buy "Injun" meal, and the more prosper- 
ous get oatmeal. The porridge is eaten with milk 
ordinarily, but if the cows are not giving milk, or if no 
cows are owned, the porridge is eaten " dry." Some 
farmers keep as many as eight or ten cows, but they 
are not high grade beasts, and a bogland cow only 
gives " about as much as a good goat." Surplus butter 
is sold to carts which make frequent trips through the 
region picking up produce in exchange for groceries. 
The carts take practically all the eggs and poultry, as 
well as the butter, for the farmers rarely eat eggs, 
and only sacrifice a hen or a duck for the home table 
at Christmas or for Easter Sunday. Even when a pig 
is slaughtered, nearly all of it is sold except the liver. 

As a rule, the poultry are domiciled in rude little huts 
built in handy nooks close about the house. These 
are dark and windowless, only three or four feet high, 
and not much deeper or broader, with sides of stone 
and roofs of sod or thatch. Where the poultry share 
the dwelling with the family, a place is usually slatted 
off for their night quarters at the end of the kitchen, 
but sometimes roosts are put up immediately inside 
the entrance, high enough to be out of the way. The 
cabin door is apt to be in two halves, and when the 
upper half is open and the lower shut, which is ordi- 
narily the case from early morning until sundown, the 



The Highlands of Donegal 



^39 



hens find the arrangement very convenient in assisting 
them to mount to their roosting place after their day's 
foraging. It is not much trouble to flap up to the 
half door, and then the rest of the flight to the roosts 
is easily completed. 

Life on the Donegal moorlands is much the same 
from year to year. It is a day-to-day struggle, and 
the prospect never attains much brightness. Yet the 
Highlanders are an independent race and do not ask 
for charity. To me they seemed hardy and indus- 
trious to an unusual degree; and I could not but regret 
that the conditions of their homeland were not more 
favorable. 







,i#«^. 



VIII 



PEASANT LIFE IN CONNEMARA 




A' 



S compared with the other divi- 
sions of Britain, Ireland has 
a run-down, out-at-the-heels 
""^ look that is depressing. Both the 
^^ \ country districts and the towns show 
V marked signs of dilapidation, decay, 
and thriftlessness. There are broken 
walls and litter in the neighborhood 
of all the villages and cities, and the 
land commonly has the appearance of 
being tilled neither energetically nor 
carefully. 

I was more than ever impressed by 
this aspect of melancholy in an 
August trip I made across the Island 
from Dublin to Galway. The country, as seen from 
the car window, was uniformly flat, and much of it was 
bogland — wide, brown, unfenced grazing wastes with 
black stacks of peat scattered over them, and dark 
pools gleaming in the cuttings. Now and then there 

140 




Peasant Life in Connemara 141 

were places in the bogs where the heather grew in 
great masses of pink bloom ; but it was only in patches, 
and never covered acres and miles as on the Highland 
moors of Scotland. 

I travelled third class, and though that gave me a 
chance to see more of life than in one of the better 
apartments, the discomfort was rather greater than I 
anticipated. In England the average third-class car- 
riage, in spite of its being very plain and boxy, is quite 
satisfactory for a ride of moderate length. But in 
Ireland it is entirely cushionless, and the men smoke 
and spit with the most barbaric freedom. The people 
were, however, lively and talkative, and almost without 
exception were good-natured and accommodating. 
They were much inclined to excitement at the stations, 
and there was always a commotion and a scramble to 
get hold of the baggage as it was unloaded from the 
van. 

A tendency to loiter till the last moment on the 
platform was manifest among intending travellers, and 
when the train prepared to start the guard had to cry, 
" Take your sates ! " vehemently, to get the passengers 
on board. 

At one place several girls entered my apartment, and 
an old man, who was seeing them off and giving them 
all sorts of directions, presently bethought himself to 
step to the lunch room and buy some ginger beer for 



142 The Isle of the Shamrock 

a treat. He came back with a bottle and a glass just 
as the conductor was slamming the doors and warning 
everybody to get on. That put the old gentleman in 
a flurry, and when he tried to pour the beer he did not 
hold the bottle right, and the glass ball in the neck 
kept rolling down and stopping the passage, so that 
with each attempt he only got a few drops. The train 
began to move, and one of the girls snatched bottle 
and glass. She was more successful in her pouring, 
but the old gentleman was reaching in at the window 
in great turmoil to get the things back. 

" Here," said the girl, handing out the bottle, " I'll 
give you that, anyway." 

" The glass, the glass too ! " cried the old man, now 
breaking into a trot to keep pace with the accelerating 
speed of the train. 

After taking one more hasty gulp the girl relin- 
quished the glass, and then to our surprise the train 
slowed up sharply and came to a standstill. We had 
made a false start — been switching or something of 
that sort — and we had only gone a few rods. In a 
moment the old gentleman was at the window, panting, 
with beads of perspiration on his forehead. He handed 
in the glass and the bottle again, and the girls finished 
the beverage at their leisure. The passengers were all 
much pleased over the performance, especially a man 
with a bottle of his own sticking out the inside pocket 




Mowing 



Peasant Life in Connemara 143 

of his coat. "Ah," said he, "sure, we'd be nearly 
arrivin' at Galway now if it wasn't for your drinkin' ! " 

We passed many httle, gray, stone towns along our 
route, and now and then a ruined tower or castle. The 
cottages that I saw from the car window were small, 
with whitewashed walls, thatched roofs, and a good 
deal of filth and rubbish about the yards. In the fields 
were numerous cattle feeding, goats and geese were 
common, and donkeys, the national beasts of burden, 
popularly believed to be equal to anything, and to be 
able to live on air if occasion demands, were omni- 
present. The fields were pleasantly green, and looked 
fairly fertile, and a most attractive touch was bestowed 
on the landscape by the old hedgerows. These were 
at this season just maturing their fruit — little hawthorn 
apples with so strong a reddish tinge as to give the 
bushes the appearance of being full of bright blossoms. 

At Galway I stayed over night. It is a battered 
old town, with many lofty stone warehouses in the 
business section, but a large fraction of these were 
grimly vacant, and the place did not look as if it was 
thriving. A few years ago there was hope of rejuve- 
nating it by making it the terminus of a line of Atlantic 
greyhounds. The harbor furnished a fine anchorage, 
and the port is nearer New York than any other in 
Europe. The passage would be eight hours shorter 
than to Queenstown, and the mail expenses would be 



144 '^h^ ^s^^ °^ ^^^ Shamrock 

materially reduced. A million dollars were spent in 
jetties, quays, docks, and basins, but the entrance to 
the harbor is difficult, and the loss of a large steamer 
which struck a forgotten reef and foundered in sight 
of the town damped all enthusiasm, and, except for a 
few small emigrant ships, Galway has as little sea traffic 
as ever. 

In ancient times the port was much frequented by 
merchants from Spain, with which country it had a con- 
siderable commerce. The town still retains architectu- 
ral peculiarities, due to the old-time Spanish influence 
— houses decorated with fantastic, weather-worn carv- 
ings, and buildings that have a court in the centre with 
a gateway opening into the street. Perhaps the most 
interesting reminiscence of the past, to the stranger, is 
that recalled by a tablet on the wall of St. Nicholas 
Churchyard commemorating the " stern and unbending 
justice " of James Lynch Fitz-Stephen, who was mayor 
of the city some four hundred years ago. A son had 
conspired with the crew of a ship in which he was 
returning from a voyage, to murder the captain and 
convert the property to their own use. For this crime 
the son was tried and condemned to death by his 
father, the mayor. The young man had numerous 
friends, and they laid their plans to go enmass and 
intercede for him, but the father learned of their 
intentions, and lest their pleadings should swerve him 



Peasant Life in Connemara 145 

from fulfilling the demands of the law, he caused the 
condemned man to be executed before their arrival. 
When they approached the house they saw the son's 
lifeless body dangling from one of the windows. 

Down by the shore of Galway Bay, on the outskirts 
of the city, live the fishing folk in a community by 
themselves. Their houses are whitewashed cabins, with 
thatch roofs, and the inhabitants are purely Celtic, cling- 
ing to the Irish language and to antiquated customs 
and costumes. They elect their own chief magistrate 
or " King" yearly, and although under the same munici- 
pal rule as the rest of the city, they acknowledge the 
authority of their king as supreme in regard to many of 
their affairs. While I was loitering in their village, I 
made the acquaintance of a boy carrying a scrawny 
black kitten. He was all in tatters from head to foot, 
but he was entirely unconscious of his attire, and was 
wholly cheerful. "It is me own cat," he said, referring 
to the creature in his arms ; " and, bedad, it runned 
away yisterday, and sure, I have hunted the town all 
over, till to-day I found it." 

The lad looked as if he had gone through as many 
trials in his quest of rescue as any knight of the old le- 
gends. He was going on to relate these in detail, when 
a woman coming down the street hailed him. She 
was apparently his mother, for she spoke with authority. 
" Will you come home, thin ? " said she, and she picked 



146 The Isle of the Shamrock 

up a stone and threw it, to show him she meant busi- 
ness. We both dodged, and in haste parted company. 

From Galway I went by rail northward into a much 
more rugged region than any I had seen in the jour- 
ney across the island. The bogs bordered desolate 
lakes, and the stony Connemara Mountains rose in 
ragged outlines. This railroad on the west coast had 
been built only a year, and it gave easy access to a 
district where the Irish peasant could be seen unaf- 
fected by the march of modern improvement. Not 
that the life there is exceptional ; for what is true of 
Connemara, is just as true of many other parts of Ire- 
land, and even in the sections most favored the peasant 
life is exceedingly primitive, and the home surround- 
ings dubiously poverty-stricken. 

I left the train at a place called Recess, and found 
myself on the platform of a lonely little station in the 
midst of a bog. No houses were in sight, but a man 
with a jaunting-car took me aboard, and raced his 
horse for a hotel a mile away, as if he was going to 
a fire. I hung on for dear life, and was thankful 
when I alighted without mishap. 

At the hotel — a whitewashed stone building in a 
little wood on the edge of a lough — I was welcomed 
by a slick waiter, with an expansive shirt-bosom, 
and a posy in his buttonhole. He gave one the im- 
pression that the hotel was a very high-toned establish- 




< i 



h 



Peasant Life in Connemara 147 

ment ; but the interior was rather forlorn, nevertheless, 
with its stained and out-of-date wall-paper, its decrepit 
furniture, and an odor that suggested a need of scrub- 
bing and renovation. 

Soon after I arrived it was announced that the 
table d'hote dinner was ready, and about fifteen people 
gathered around the long dining room table. Most 
of them were persons touring, who were just stopping 
at Recess for a day or so. They would indulge in the 
exertion of a mountain climb, would walk or ride to 
several spots in the neighborhood that were recom- 
mended as interestingly picturesque, and then be off to 
do the same at thb next place. But there were two 
men at the head of the table whose stay was less fitful. 
They had come for the fishing, and every morning 
they went off to toil on the windy loughs, rowing up 
and down, and up and down, all day, through sunshine 
and showers, and heat and cold. At dusk they re- 
turned with the local peasants who had been with them 
to do the pulling at the oars, and they were met at the 
hotel door by the women of their respective families 
with the question, " What luck ? " 

Neither man caught more than three or four fish as 
a rule in any one day, and as they had to pay roundly 
for the fishing privilege, the fish often cost them half a 
guinea or more apiece. They had a good deal to say 
about their experiences, but it had very much of a same- 



148 The Isle of the Shamrock 

ness, I thought, and the most entertaining incident I 
heard related was of a rainy day when one of the boats 
neglected to carry along anything with which to bail 
out the water, and a rower had taken off a shoe and 
made that serve the purpose. I failed to see any 
pleasure in spending two months, as these men had, 
in that lonely spot fishing those solemn loughs. 

The dining room was a curious combination of fine 
intentions and shabbiness. The floor was uneven, 
and the doors and windows were warped, and had to 
be wrestled with whenever the attempt was made to 
either open or close them. At one end of the room 
stood a piano, but it was badly marred and out of tune. 
The table linen was dirty, the sugar bowls were pewter, 
and the knives and forks were rude and much worn. 
In the daytime a number of hornets were buzzing 
about and disputing the possession of the jam with the 
guests. But as an antidote to these flaws and imper- 
fections there was our waiter with his starched linen 
and a flower in his buttonhole, and there were the 
fine big bouquets set along the middle of the table, 
and there were the trout, freshly caught and beyond 
criticism. 

The day following that on which I reached Recess 
was Sunday, and at breakfast I asked the waiter where 
I could attend service. He said there was no church 
anywhere near, but that the people went to mass every 



Peasant Life in Connemara 149 

other Sunday at a farmhouse a mile down the road. 
This was the alternate Sunday, and service would begin 
at nine o'clock in the morning. I started as soon as 
breakfast was over and, warned that I would be late 
by the intermittent running along the road of three 
women who passed me, I walked rapidly. When I 
approached the farmhouse I could hear the monoto- 
nous voice of the priest going through the service 
in the kitchen. The door was open and I could see 
that the room was packed with kneeling worshippers. 
But the house interior could not accommodate all who 
had come, and in the yard were thirty or forty persons 
more. They gathered as near as they could con- 
veniently get to the doorway, and knelt like their fel- 
low-worshippers inside. The yard was narrow and 
grassless, and entirely open to the highway. On one 
side of it were a number of jaunting-cars with their 
shafts tipped up skyward, and, tied to the walls of a 
neighboring stable, was a saddled pony. 

I felt a little doubtful as to how to deport myself, and 
I took my place on the outskirts of the open air por- 
tion of the congregation near the carts, whence, through 
the single small kitchen window, I sometimes caught a 
glimpse of the priest in his white robes. The service 
was an hour long, and most of that time the people were 
on their knees. The yard was rough, and not over- 
and-above neat, and the worshippers got down on its 



150 The Isle of the Shamrock 

grit and stones with reluctance and caution, evidently- 
picking out the softer and cleaner spots. Sometimes 
a man would ease a kneepan by putting under it his 
red bandana or his cap. A part of the time he would 
be down on one knee, then he would change to the 
other, then get down on both. One old man, with 
bushy gray whiskers sticking out from under his chin in 
a prehistoric semicircle, found even these changes insuf- 
ficient, and now and then would get down on all fours. 
In that posture he looked very like a monstrous toad. 

The sounds of the priest's voice came to us outside 
indistinct and confused, and the people in the yard 
apparently kneeled and rose in unison with a man next 
the door who had a better opportunity to hear than 
the rest, and who occasionally peeked inside. The 
open air devotees were not specially attentive. Their 
eyes were constantly wandering to me or to each other, 
and their hands kept up a lively rubbing and slapping 
in a losing warfare with the abqunding midges. 

At one point the priest came to the threshold, and 
the outdoor worshippers all hurried into a huddled 
group about him, while he threw holy water on them. 
He did the job by wholesale, using a stick with a swab 
on the end. This swab he dipped into a bowl that he 
held in his left hand, and then made sudden flings 
this way and that out on the audience, the members of 
which would keep up an awkward hopping movement, 




h 



Peasant Life in Connemara 151 

as if in an ecstatic eagerness to feel some of the pre- 
cious drops trickling over them. 

When the service ended the congregation straggled 
off, some up the road, some down, some following 
paths across the bogs, and a few lingering in the yard 
to visit. A young fellow mounted the saddled horse, 
and other horses were brought from the stable and 
hitched into the jaunting-cars. Such men as had a 
team would Hght their pipes as soon as they finished 
hitching up, then would start the horse and clamber 
up to the seat from either side, just as the creature was 
breaking into a trot. This hit-or-miss tumbling on 
looked reckless to me, but its spice of gymnastic 
unconventionality seemed to just suit the Irish nature. 

I chose to make a detour in returning to my hotel, 
and went off on a bog road that led to a straggling 
group of four or five cottages. The road grew more 
crooked and narrow and fuller of ledges and loose 
stones with each house I passed, till it conducted me 
into the barnyard of a final dwelling and stopped. 
But I climbed over the wall and went on across the 
water-soaked barren of the bog. My route was one 
of frequent zigzags, to avoid the spots that looked wet- 
test and softest, but in spite of all my care in jumping 
from grass-tuft to grass-tuft, I could not avoid getting 
wet feet. I thought I knew just how to cut across the 
bog to my hotel, but the heaving surface of the marsh 



152 



The Isle of the Shamrock 



was so uniformly sober and so without mark of tree or 
stone that as soon as I lost sight of the hamlet through 
which I had passed, I was confused and had naught to 
guide me but a general idea of direction. I went on 
thus for some time, and then came to a lonely little 
ruin. It was a single small building with walls still 
entire. The roof was there, too, but it had fallen 
down within the walls at one end. 

At first glance I took it for granted that the place 
was deserted, yet a closer approach revealed a potato 
patch by the door, and wisps of smoke were streaking 
up from the peak of the gable that had not yet parted 
company with the thatch. I was about to look in 
at the open door when two cows walked out. A 
third stood inside chewing her cud. She turned 
her head and regarded me with mild-eyed interest. 
It was a curious apartment, with the half-fallen roof 
high at one end and slanting down to the floor at 
the other. By chance the rafters had so dropped 
that the thatch remained complete, or else it had 
been made weather-proof where it lay, by adjusting 
and patching. Against the farther wall were set two 
chairs, and above them was a shelf holding a few dishes, 
and there was a little fireplace with some fragments of 
peat smouldering on the hearth. Otherwise the room 
looked like a rude stable. The house had one tiny 
window, but even that was unglazed, and was just a 



Peasant Life in Connemara 153 

square hole in the wall. No doubt it was stuffed with 
sedge in bad weather — that is, if this really was a 
human habitation. But I saw neither man, woman, 
nor child, and came away wondering. Did those three 
cows keep house there on the remote bogland unbe- 
known to every one, after the manner of animals in the 
fairy tales, or was it all a dream ? 

I continued for some distance over the bog, in what 
I judged was the direction of my hotel, and was begin- 
ning to fear I had gone hopelessly astray, when I 
espied a boy on donkey-back riding across the waste. 
I called and beckoned to him, and he stopped and 
waited till I came up. In response to my questions 
he told me where to find a path that would lead me 
back to civilization, and I left him seated stock-still on 
his donkey, twisted half around, gaping at me as if I 
was beyond his comprehension. But after the space 
of a minute or two I noticed he had slipped off his 
creature's back and was searching in the bog. Then 
he remounted with something in his hand, and came 
cantering along awkwardly in my wake to offer me, in 
the hope of a tip, a sprig of white heather he had picked. 
White heather is comparatively rare, and besides, it 
has a touch of romantic interest ; for if a lover pre- 
sents to his lady a bouquet of it, she understands that 
he has in a delicate way proposed marriage. I gave 
the boy a bit of silver, and then it occurred to me to 



154 The Isle of the Shamrock 

inquire about the Httle ruin of a house back on the 
bog. 

" Oh," he said, " that's the house of an ould body 
by the name o' Mary McCarty, and sure, here comes 
hersilf, now." 

A barefoot woman with a colored handkerchief tied 
about her head was approaching. She greeted the boy 
familiarly when she came near, and asked him, with a 
good deal of angry and distressed perturbation, if he 
had seen any of " thim villains" who had been stealing 
her hay. It seemed she had mowed a little piece near 
her cabin with her hand sickle, and while she was away 
some men had come — "the nagurs ! and they got two 
loads off from me — as much as they could carry on 
their backs." 

The crime was all the blacker because she had no 
one but herself to " depind on." She lived alone in 
the hut, save that with her in the tiny broken-roofed 
apartment were housed her three cows. The bit of 
land she cultivated and the cows barely kept her from 
starvation. Then, too, she did not know when the 
house would be down on her head. 

" Many's the time," said she, " in a storrum, when 
in fear of me life I have gone out and stayed in the 
open sandpit at the back till the storrum was over. 
Ah, it is a poor place, sir, and sure, there's no worse 
in all Erin ! '* 




Getting out Peat 



Peasant Life in Connemara 155 

And it seemed to me then, as it does now, in recall- 
ing all I have seen of the Irish cabins in various parts 
of the island, that she was right. 

When we parted, the woman and boy went away in 
company across the bogland desolation, and I kept 
along a vague path that led me in time to several 
houses straggling along a steep slope, at the foot of 
which flowed a little river. The single village lane, 
with a tiny rivulet trickling among its stones, was about 
as much like the bed of a brook as it was a roadway, 
and whenever there was a heavy rain it must have con- 
tained a torrent. I followed the lane through the house 
dooryards until I met an old man driving two cows 
up to their pasturage on the moor. He stopped me, 
apparently for the express purpose of imparting the 
information that he was one hundred years old. With 
his lean figure, his faded eyes, and his loose-hung chin 
covered with gray stubble, he looked as old as he said 
he was, but driving cows seemed a rather sprightly 
occupation for a centenarian. 

I asked him how I should get to my hotel, and 
when, with some difficulty, he got his mind off his 
age and concentrated on this new topic, he led me 
to a knoll a little higher up, and pointed out the 
hotel's white walls a half mile distant on the other 
side of the river in the hollow. He said I could 
cross the stream by some stepping-stones " down be- 



156 The Isle of the Shamrock 

yant." I descended the hillside to the spot indicated, 
but the stones, though they made what would be a 
fair crossing for a goat, or the barefooted natives, were 
too unstable for a Christian used to bridges. Some 
children had followed me from the village, after the 
manner of their kind, and were watching my hesitation 
with interest. From them I learned that there were 
better stepping-stones farther up. 

I kept along the marshy shores, over walls, through 
briers and sloughs, with now and then a pause to 
pick some of the luscious blackberries that abounded. 
Far up above sat a man on a boulder smoking 
his pipe, and meditatively watching me, but when 
he noted presently that I was having difficulty in 
getting through a thorny hedge, down he came to 
my assistance and broke aside the bushes. Then he 
led the way across several little fields to the step- 
ping-stones, and went skipping over them with a 
nimbleness that was far beyond my abilities. He 
said the water often came up and covered the stones 
clean out of sight. 

" How do you cross, then ? " I asked. 

" We have to wade it, bedad ! " was the response. 
" Thim as hasn't a harsey to ride, is the worst aff — 
for, sure, sir, thim that is on foot go through the 
wather at the danger of their lives." 

It was a relief to get across the stream, and it was a 



Peasant Life in Connemara 157 

relief to escape from the bog, and I was heartily glad 
when I reached my hotel, thoroughly tired, hungry, 
and belated. 

On the evening of the day following I went for 
another bogland walk, up a long hillocky slope near 
the hotel. The earth was spongy and yielding. A 
mass of moss overspread its surface, intermingled with 
scanty and unthrifty grasses, clumps of heather, and a 
scattering of reeds. Here and there the moor was 
brightened with touches of delicate yellow green, but 
the general tone was brownish and sombre. Frequent 
gray boulders thrust up into view. These became 
more numerous as the land rose higher, till I climbed 
a ridge where the soil was thin and strewn every- 
where with shattered rock. Beyond this ridge was a 
little huddle of houses with an accompaniment of tiny 
stone-walled fields running down into a green valley. 
The houses were low, and their walls and thatched 
roofs were dark colored, and so like the surrounding 
bog that they seemed not the work of human beings, 
but some huge mushroom growths of nature. Not a 
tree was in sight, nor anything related to a tree, save 
a few little osier beds in the garden patches, and these 
osiers were quite inconspicuous, for they were cut off 
periodically to furnish wands for weaving creels. 

As soon as I began to descend the ridge, a barefoot 
woman with a shawl over her head and a big baby in 



158 The Isle of the Shamrock 

her arms came hurrying to me from an outlying cabin 
of the village. She arrived breathless, and thrust a bit 
of green marble into my hand, and called down bless- 
ings on my head in her fervent jargon. All this was 
intended to soften my heart and coax forth a tip. She 
told with pride how fond the little " Pat" in her arms 
was of money — how if he saw strangers coming, he 
would run to her and say, " Gentlemens ! gentlemens ! 
come and get money." 

When any one gave him a bit he would say, 
"Thank God, I've got my money." 

He was two years old, but she said he made her 
carry him everywhere she went. Even if she had a 
big sack of peat on her back, she must take him along 
under one arm. Once, she said, she gave him a little 
flat stone and tied it in the corner of a handkerchief, 
and he carried it about in his bosom all day and called 
it his money. 

Rough, narrow, stone-walled lanes, crooked and 
rocky, connected cottages. Blackberry bushes, thickly 
dotted with ripe fruit, straggled over the walls. I 
thought it a wonder, in such a starved-looking com- 
munity where there were plenty of children, that the 
berries were left to ripen. All through that region 
blackberries were plenty and delicious, but few were 
ever picked in consequence of an old superstition that 
they are a cause of cholera. This belief is still rife 



Peasant Life In Connemara 159 

among the Irish peasants. But I, ignorant of the dire 
possibilities that lay in the berries, piclced and ate 
wherever I went. 

While thus engaged in a village lane, a young man 
approached me, said, " Good evening to your honor," 
and jumped over a wall and snapped off some choice 
clusters for me. After that he walked about in my 
company, a self-constituted guide. But he was a 
quick, intelligent fellow, and I did not object. His 
name was Michael. Just above the village was a 
quarry, and many great blocks of stone, curiously 
grained and colored, were lying round about. This 
quarry had been a short-lived experiment, and was 
not worked now. Michael said it had given employ- 
ment to a number of the village men, and they were 
paid half a crown a day, while some men that were 
" brought from away earned as much as five shillings, 
sir — they did, sir ! " 

Now there was no employment to be had in the 
neighborhood. The villagers could only work their 
little farms or leave. About all the young men and 
young women went away to the towns or to America. 
Michael had two brothers in Boston. They did 
not write what they were doing, but every year 
they sent home some money to " the ould man," 
his father. 

The rents of these little farms were from two to six 



i6o The Isle of the Shamrock 

pounds. Each cottager grew a little field of oats, 
another of potatoes, another of grass, and some raised 
patches of cabbages or turnips. The crops were 
grown mostly on the thin-soiled, stony hillsides. If a 
man took a field in the meadow below, his neighbors 
thought he was too well off, and accused him of an 
inclination to put on airs and ape the aristocracy. 
Besides all this, it added an extra pound to the rent. 
Most of the people kept two or three cows, several 
sheep, and a few hens. In some cases they owned a 
pony or a goat or a flock of geese. There were also 
two half-grown pigs that frequented the village lanes. 
They were sharp-nosed, long-legged creatures, nimble 
of foot, and apparently capable, in their wanderings, 
of picking up their own living. When at home they 
lived in their master's house. This house had but a 
single room, and the pig-pen was in one corner. Aside 
from the pigs, the family was composed of a man and 
wife and three or four children. Their abode was 
windowless, and light came in only through the two 
doors and possible chinks in the walls. 

Michael said that in old times they used to keep 
the pigs under the bed, but they did not do so in this 
village of Lisouter, nowadays. The people sold their 
poultry at the hotel, and other produce they took to 
market at the nearest town. Potatoes, of course, 
stood chief on their bill of fare, as they do among 



Peasant Life in Connemara i6i 

the Irish peasantry everywhere. Some occasionally 
indulged in mutton, and most families had oatmeal 
frequently. Now and then they bought fish, and 
bacon was more or less familiar ; but many of them 
never knew the taste of beef. 

The oats raised are fed out to the stock, and the 
oatmeal for house use is bought, a bagful at a time. 
Flour is purchased in the same way, and bread is 
baked in a flat kettle on the hearth. Very little butter 
or cheese is made, and what little milk the poorly fed 
cows give is drunk with the potatoes and oatmeal. 
Since the railroad came, tea has become a family ne- 
cessity, and all the eggs the hens lay go in exchange 
for it. 

About the only farm tools to be found in Lisouter 
are spades — primitive, narrow-bladed, and one-sided, 
but apparently effective. No such contrivance as a 
plough has ever been seen in the village. The people 
dig their fields over by hand. Potatoes are planted in 
rows that are nearly three feet wide, known as "drills," 
and the space between each drill and the one next it 
is dug out like a ditch and serves for drainage. The 
potato tops grow in a spindling jungle on the drills, 
much too close together to do well. Crops are not 
rotated, but are grown over and over on the same 
ground, and are never what they might be. Often the 
potatoes fail to come up except scatteringly, in which 



1 62 The Isle of the Shamrock 

case cabbage plants are set to fill out the blanks. This 
year had been wetter than usual, and the " blight had 
come on the p'taties too early," so that it seemed likely 
the Lisouter folk would go on short rations before the 
next harvest time. 

Michael and I ascended a crag at the rear of the 
hamlet to get a view. Several of the village chil- 
dren tagged after all the way, taking turns at begging. 
"Please give me a copper, sir — only one, sir," they 
said ; and refusals had no effect whatever on them. 
One boy of eight, still in skirts, had a baby on his 
back — a solemn, watchful baby that never let out a 
sound. The boy did not seem to mind his burden, 
but clambered everywhere the others did. These shoe- 
less children were sure-footed and nimble, and they 
skipped about the rocky hillside like wild creatures 
of the bog. I went high up to where I could look 
down on the long stretches of dreary marshlands that 
are omnipresent in the region, spotted and linked all 
over by the loughs, large and small. Far away in the 
west I could catch a gleam of the sea, while in the 
near landscape the mountain crags were darkling, and 
in the hollow close below were the hovels of Lisouter 
and their little patchwork of varicolored fields. On 
the way back through the village a stout, fairly well- 
dressed young man got off the wall where he had been 
loafing, and came hulking after me. " Please, sir, give 



Peasant Life in Connemara 163 

me the price of an ounce of tobacco," he said. The 
children beggars followed me far down the hill. Beg- 
ging seemed to be constitutional with the Connemara 
peasantry, and I always had a persistent group in my 
wake every time I visited Lisouter. 

When I approached the village a day or two after- 
ward, a woman came hurrying across two or three 
fields with a bundle of cloth on her arm, and greeted 
me with, " Good marnin*, sir, an' sure it's a fine 
marnin,' sir." 

Then she spread out the cloth along with a few 
coarse socks and urged me to buy. "Plaze, sir," she 
said, " buy the friz, for the love o' God and a poor 
woman who's lost her b'y an' pit him in the grave 
only five weeks past." 

She went on to tell me that she had borrowed 
the money for the boy's burial from a poor neighbor 
woman who must be paid now, and she with nothing 
to pay. Her husband after the funeral had gone 
far away to get work, " but he soon come back, for 
there were a big weight on his heart, and he could eat 
nothing at all, at all." She spoke of her eight chil- 
dren — " Four of 'em I've given to God, and four of 
'em's alive — God bless 'em." 

I went across the fields to her cottage, squatted 
among the stony patches of oats and potatoes. Like 
the rest of the Lisouter cabins, its stone walls were 



164 The Isle of the Shamrock 

loosely chinked with peat. Roofs were of sedge tied 
on with straw ropes thickly drawn over and fastened 
to pegs under the eaves or to stones hung along the 
edges. The thatch was renewed every year. It would 
last two if new ropes were put on each time, but few 
would do that. The chimneys were insignificant, and 
hardly showed above the roofs. Peat was the only 
fuel burned. It all came from the bog, a sack at a 
time, on the women's backs. The Lisouter folk never 
saw coal till some was brought for use in an engine at 
the quarry. Then they thought it was rock, and it 
was a great wonder to them that the stuff burned. 
Most never saw a railroad till the local one was put 
through, the year before. As soon as it was finished 
they all must ride ; but when it came to getting aboard, 
they felt they were taking their lives in their hands, 
and at the start the old women were all jumping up 
and screaming they would be murdered and their 
friends would never see them any more. 

The woman with the cloth to sell showed me into 
her cottage. The door was low, and I had to stoop to 
enter. She hunted up a level place on the dirt floor, 
and set out a chair for me. A dim fire burned among 
the rough stones of the fireplace, and sent a little 
smoke up the chimney and a great deal of smoke out 
into the room. The kitchen was full of flies, and it 
had the odor of a stable. The floor was much littered 



Peasant Life in Connemara 165 

with heather and rushes that had been brought in to 
bed the cow and calf that had a home in one end of 
the kitchen. On some tattered blankets thrown over 
a heap of sedge near the fireplace two of the children 
slept. The rest of the family had a bedroom beyond 
a thin partition. 

My hostess, in the midst of her talk with me, pulled 
a short pipe from her pocket and made much mourn 
that she had no tobacco to fill it. She said a smoke 
was very comforting. " It's loike medicine to me." 

My former guide, Michael, had come up to the 
cottage, and was talking outside with some of the 
beggar children. The woman saw him and sent out 
her ragged little girl, Bridget, to " borrow the loan 
of the pipe " he was smoking. Michael relinquished 
his pipe readily, and as the woman whiffed she blessed 
him again and again. When I left, she blessed me 
likewise, saying, " Long life to ye ! An' may your 
journey home be better than the one over. God 
bless ye, an* give ye a safe crossin' ! " 

In a cabin a little farther up the hill lived a woman 
all alone. She was still young and not unattractive. 
Her husband had gone to America, and he would have 
taken her with him, but she would not leave. A letter 
had come from him only the week before in which he 
sent ^3, and the villagers thought that was doing 
pretty well. Her cottage was hedged in by great 



1 66 The Isle of the Shamrock 

growths of nettles that flourished all about. The 
roof leaked and the cabin had but one room, which 
the woman shared with two cows. I looked in, but 
did not care to enter. It was more like a floorless 
stable, that had not been cleaned for a week, than a 
human habitation. The house at some time had had 
a single window, but this was now loosely closed with 
stones. Most of the Lisouter houses, however, had 
at least one window, and several of them had two, 
though occasionally these lacked glass. All were 
small, varying in number of panes from one to four. 

Mud and refuse were almost universal about the 
doorways, and a " midden " (manure heap) was always 
handy near the house front. A skeleton horse was 
feeding in a waste near the quarry ; some old men, 
working-days past, were sunning themselves on the 
rocks ; one or two old women were sitting or leaning 
on the walls near their cabin doors, some in idleness, 
some knitting. In the oat fields the men were reap- 
ing laboriously handful by handful with their sickles, 
and the barefoot women followed behind to bind the 
sheaves. The women gleaned over the ground as 
they worked, and picked up every straw. 

I spoke with one man, and he said he had two or 
three acres in his farm, but it was very poor land, and 
in a wet year his crops were well-nigh failures. Still, he 
considered himself better off than most of his neighbors. 



Peasant Life in Connemara 167 

Nearly every day I saw the children going to school 
in the morning, and met them returning in the even- 
ing. Their aspect had the same untamed wildness 
then that it had as I saw them running about the bogs 
and crags that surrounded the home village. The 
schoolhouse was four miles distant, and the route 
thither was along a desolate road winding through 
the dun marshes. The children went barefoot and 
bareheaded, except for a few of the older boys, who 
wore caps. They each carried a piece of dry bread 
for their noon lunch, and that was all the food they 
had till they returned home late in the afternoon. 
But, with all their hardships, they looked sturdy 
and healthy. Probably weaklings do not survive 
long. Once I noticed that a boy in a group of 
children returning from school carried a book, and I 
asked to see it. It was a most forlorn little Third 
Reader — a wreck of a book — covers broken, marked 
and greasy within, and many pages torn or gone 
altogether. 

As I handed back the book I noticed a great 
black bug crawling along the path, and I pointed it 
out to the children, and said, " That's a beetle, isn't 
it?" 

But they said, "No, it is a prumpalong, sir." 

They had never heard of such a thing as a beetle. 
" We do not have thim here, sir, I think," explained 



1 68 The Isle of the Shamrock 

one of the older children ; " but we have prumpa- 
longs — plinty of thim." 

The schoolhouse was a bare modern building with 
gray plaster walls. It stood in the centre of a rough, 
rocky yard, that was surrounded by a high stone wall. 
Outside the enclosure all was bog, save for three or 
four houses with their little fields straggling along the 
road not far away. I inquired of the children what 
games they played at school, and they replied that 
they raced after each other some, and that was all. 
Indeed, their intermissions were usually spent in just 
sitting around and doing nothing. They indulged 
in no games, even about their homes in the village. 
Apparently, they had lost the impulse to play, and 
I thought nothing could be more eloquent than this 
of the depressing environment in which they lived. 

One of the things I looked specially for in Ireland 
was the shamrock. I had no clear idea of what it was 
like, except that it was green and triple-leaved, and I 
supposed it was a native of the bogs. Often in my 
moorland wanderings I saw a coarse, fleshy plant that 
grew in thin clumps where the water gathered in pools. 
The leaves were three-parted, but larger than the 
largest clover. Still, I thought it must be shamrock, 
and picked some of it and showed it to a native. The 
native did not even know the name of my bogland 
weed, but he stooped down and showed me some of 



Peasant Life in Connemara 



169 



the true shamrock growing by the roadside. It is an 
insignificant, yet delicate, little plant that loves to grow 
on stone walls and along roadways where the soil is 
poor and often scraped away. It was more like the 
downtrodden white clover that in America one finds 
growing in dooryard paths than anything else. The 
peasantry feel a real affection for the shamrock, and it is 
beautiful in their eyes. Like themselves, it lives amid 
hard conditions, and it seems pathetically appropriate 
that it should be the Irish national emblem. 




IX 



JAUNTING-CAR JOURNEYS 



I 



t I AHE jaunting-car is Ire- 
land's most characteris- 
tic vehicle for ordinary, 
light riding. It is a slender, 
two-wheeled contrivance whose 
virtues and peculiarities can 
only be fully appreciated by 
actual use. Immediately over 
the wheels on either side is a seat 
facing outward, and accommoda- 
tion for one's feet is furnished 
by a swaying shelf or step on a 
level with the hubs. The driver 
has a seat in front, but he never 
occupies it unless the other two 
are filled. He usually has a mania for going about 
with a breakneck impetuosity, and a first experience 
on a jaunting-car is vividly suggestive of the adventur- 
ous. Every turn is full of startling possibilities, and 
as you swing around them you cling to your precarious 

170 




Jaunting-car Journeys 171 

perch over the wheel with a reaHzing sense of the power 
of centrifugal force such as you never have had before. 

It was a vehicle of this genus which I mounted one 
afternoon at Recess for a ten-mile drive to Cong on 
the shores of Lough Corrib. I occupied the right- 
hand seat and my driver the one opposite. The 
country along the route was bare and boggy, upheav- 
ing into frequent, steep, stony-topped hills that some- 
times had little farms on their lower slopes. We 
passed many geese, pigs, and donkeys feeding by the 
roadside, and the driver always took pains to give the 
pigs a cut with his whip when they were within reach. 
Perhaps he had a touch of viciousness in his nature, 
for, in addition to his attention to the pigs, he was con- 
tinually belaboring his horse, and was never content 
unless the creature was humping along in an uncom- 
fortable canter. 

Once we passed a schoolhouse. The door was open, 
and we could look in and see a room full of children. 
Outside were many more — a group of fifteen or 
twenty on each side of the porch. A woman teacher 
had charge of the group on the right, and one of the 
older boys, acting as monitor, had charge of the other. 
The driver said that in the case of most schoolhouses 
the reciting was all done indoors, but this particular 
one was very much crowded and there wasn't room. 
Then he went on to explain that he did not approve 



172 The Isle of the Shamrock 

of the new methods of education in vogue. About 
the craziest notion of all, he thought, was the attempt 
to teach the children words before they were taught 
the alphabet. 

" It did used to be the way," said he, " before any- 
thing else, to learn your ah-b-c's so you could say 'em 
back'ards and for'ards and up and down till you knew 
'em thorough — and that was the right way too ! Our 
ould schoolmaster, his name was Connolly, sir, he 
taught his son that's now the captain of a liner sailin' 
to the foreign ; and the master, nor his son neither, 
niver heard of no such nonsince as this learnin' readin', 
writin', and 'rithmetic before the ah-b-c's." 

Among the people we saw on the road was an old 
man and a girl of sixteen or seventeen, the latter carry- 
ing her shoes in her hand. 

" Why is it," I asked the driver, " that most of the 
women here in Connemara go barefoot, while most of 
the men wear shoes ? " 

"I cannot tell, sir," he replied, " except that the 
women do not care to wear shoes. They will not be 
bothered with them, sir." 

During the latter part of our journey we kept along 
the borders of the broad, island-dotted Lough Corrib, 
which afforded a pleasant relief to the eye after being 
so long among the omnipresent bogs. Cong, too, as 
we approached it, looked quite attractive, owing to the 



Jaunting-car Journeys 173 

presence of an unusual number of trees in and about 
it. But close acquaintance revealed a rusty, decadent 
little village. It was formerly much more prosperous 
and populous, and was the centre of considerable trade. 
In these modern days, however, steam connection with 
the outside world is a vital business necessity and, 
lacking this, Cong's condition has become one of 
settled hopelessness. The old women beggars lie in 
wait for all comers at the street corners, ruined build- 
ings are frequent, and an atmosphere of decay and 
blight pervades the whole village. Cows loiter in the 
public ways, chickens hang about the home thresholds 
and walk in and out the houses at pleasure, and the 
pigs wander freely through the streets nosing into the 
puddles and garbage. At times these four-legged 
scavengers are assaulted by roving dogs, and then 
there is squealing and scampering ; but the rout is 
not permanent, and the pigs are soon at their labors 
again. 

Cong's chief claim to interest is its ancient abbey, 
one of the finest ruins in Ireland. The building dates 
back to the sixth century, and at one time it was the 
home of seven hundred monks and was the island's 
chief seat of learning. Contemporary with Cong 
Abbey there were in Erin various other monastic 
founts of knowledge, and at a time when England 
was sunk in Druidic barbarism, or engaged in wars 



174 The Isle of the Shamrock 

with invading Saxons, Danes, and Normans, Ireland 
was well advanced in civilization. 

Like all the other ancient Irish monasteries, that at 
Cong owed its being to the promulgation of Christian- 
ity in Erin by St. Patrick, with whom the authentic 
history of the island begins. The saint was not Irish 
born, and he made his first acquaintance with the island 
in his sixteenth year as the captive of a band of pirates 
who had seized him on his father's farm in France. 
They sold him to a petty chief, in whose service he 
remained for six years. When he at length succeeded 
in escaping, he made his way back to France, where he 
became a monk and rose high in the Christian church. 
In the year 432 he returned to Ireland as a missionary 
appointed by the Pope, and wherever he went convic- 
tion and conversion followed. By degrees he visited 
all parts of the island, and king after king and chieftain 
after chieftain became the servants of Christ. St. Pat- 
rick had found Ireland pagan, but when he died the 
power of the old gods was gone forever. 

After he had been laid to rest his disciples carried 
the cross of Christ to Scotland and England, to the 
Continent, and to the wild islands of the northern seas. 
Numerous monasteries sprang up, and Erin became 
famous as the island of saints, and was the resort of 
many students of distinction from various parts of 
Europe. Indeed, it is now conceded that the Anglo- 



Jaunting-car Journeys 175 

Saxons were indebted to the Irish mainly for Chris- 
tianity and entirely for letters. 

The ruin of Cong Abbey is well cared for, and a 
bushy-bearded, gray old gardener is always on hand, 
ready to act as guide for such visitors as stray into the 
domain. There are fine grounds with gravel paths 
overarched by gnarled trees, and sweeps of lawn 
through which a little river winds, sliding over its 
pebbly bed in crystal clearness. At one place the 
current of the stream is divided by a small island, on 
which are the remains of a tiny fishhouse that in 
architecture suggests a miniature church. From this 
building the old monks used to let down a net into 
the stream, and it was so arranged that when the net 
filled with fish, a bell rang and the monks went and 
drew in their catch. Tradition relates that it was their 
success in fishing which led to their downfall. The 
ruler of the district became envious of their good eat- 
ing, and banished the whole fraternity and appropriated 
their fishing arrangements to himself. 

Within the main part of the ruined abbey is a ceme- 
tery full of great stone slabs laid flat over the graves 
of the village dead. The space is cramped, and there 
is hardly a foot of it unoccupied. Each family, the 
old gardener said, owned just the width of one grave, 
and when a body is to be buried this grave is reopened. 
In making room for a fresh interment a good many 



176 The Isle of the Shamrock 

bones are unearthed, and sometimes three or four cof- 
fins still undecayed. It has always been customary to 
return the coffins to the grave, one above the other, in 
company with the most recent addition to their num- 
ber ; but the bones, until a few years ago, were simply- 
thrown out and left scattered about the cemetery. 

The grewsome spectacle presented by Cong in former 
days was not exceptional, for it was once the general 
habit throughout Ireland to inter the dead carelessly 
within two or three feet, or even less, of the surface; 
and when room had to be made in a grave for a new 
inmate, the earlier occupants were treated with scant 
ceremony. All the old churchyards were littered with 
decayed coffin planks and bones, with no regard what- 
ever for decency. The sight of these human relics 
proved offensive to modern fastidiousness, and the 
lord of Cong Manor now compels the sexton to put 
the bones his pick and shovel brings to the surface 
back underground, while those that once strewed the 
place have been gathered up and are heaped in a mossy 
alcove of the ruin. If you choose, you can look in on 
them lying there in their dim cell — hundreds of 
skulls on one side, and thousands of lesser bones on 
the other side. 

My attention was attracted, the second morning of 
my stay in Cong, to a little open square, at the bottom 
of the main street, where were erected some primitive 



Jaunting-car Journeys 177 

scales, consisting of a balance swung from a tripod of 
poles. This open square was the town market-place, 
and here began to gather, about nine o'clock, those 
who wished to buy or sell. They made a motley 
group, few in numbers, and with only the most meagre 
supplies of produce. I was particularly interested in 
the country people bringing in bags of potatoes on 
their little donkeys. Some of the men made very 
quaint figures. They wore knee-breeches, heavy 
shoes, and bobtailed coats, and they all carried short 
canes, shillalahs I suppose, and one or two had on 
antique stovepipe hats. They were like characters 
from the comic papers come to life. 

Beyond the market-place, the village soon gave way 
to an upland country, that looked like the wreck of 
worlds. All the broad hilltops as far as the eye could 
see were covered with plains of limestone rock — gray, 
waterworn, and crisscrossed by multitudinous cracks, 
as if, after being subjected to great heat, the rock had 
suddenly cooled and shrivelled. 

One of the peculiarities of the stone is, that it is 
sufficiently porous to allow water to filter through it 
readily, a fact demonstrated by a canal excavated 
at immense cost, to connect Lough Corrib with an- 
other large lough a few miles to the north. The 
enterprise was only abandoned at the last moment, 
when the vvater was turned on and surprised the pro- 



lyS The Isle of the Shamrock 

meters by all disappearing as if the bottom of the 
canal had been a sieve. Nothing was left to show for 
money and labor, and for the prosperity the canal was 
to bring to Cong and the country round about, save 
this useless dry channel in the gray rock. 

Where the limestone begins to give place to earth, 
on the borders of the village, there are patches of fir 
woods. In one of these, on a level outcropping of 
rock near the road, I glimpsed through the evergreen 
boughs a cluster of curious cairns of stones, some of 
which had slight wooden crosses stuck in their tops. 
On inquiring, I learned that these stone heaps marked 
a spot where, long ago, the monks, at the time they 
were expelled, had stopped on their melancholy pil- 
grimage and erected a cross. Ever since, when a 
corpse is brought along this road on the way to the 
burial-place, it is set down here, and the priest offers a 
prayer for the soul of the dead ; and the cairns in the 
wood are memorial piles, heaped up from time to time 
by those who have lost friends. 

One doubtful morning, encouraged by a few patches 
of blue that showed fitfully in the misty sky, I hired a 
jaunting-car and started for Letterfrack, twenty miles 
away. My driver was a stout, red-faced old man, who, 
in deference to the threatening aspect of the day, wore 
a greatcoat, and had a heavy red muffler wound around 
his neck and across his chin. He carried a stub of 




< 



Jaunting-car Journeys 179 

a whip with a long lash, and every now and then 
encouraged his horse by a cut underneath. But he 
was kindly disposed toward the beast on the whole, 
and when the road was at all steep he got off and 
walked. We visited as we jogged along, and, among 
other things, we talked about the fairies. 

" They do be all dead now, sir," solemnly affirmed 
my companion. " We did used to have them in the 
ould times, sir, but they be all dead, long ago. I've 
niver seen a fairy mysilf, sir, and in the last thirty 
years I've been out as late at night as any one, many's 
the time, driving about. Some may fancy they sees 
something in the dark, but it's not fairies. They do 
be all dead now, sir, though I thought different, sir, 
whin I was a slip of a lad ; for, clost to where I lived 
then, there was a rath — that's a fort, you know, sir, 
big banks of earth around the top of a hill, that some 
says the sojers used to fight from. But it was always 
telled me whin I was a lad that the rath was a fairies' 
fort, and we niver dared to touch it with a spade, or cut 
down a tree growin' on it, or carry away a stone ; and 
they said if you put your ear to the ground at night 
you would hear the fairy music risin' up from under 
the earth, but I was too scared to go there, after dark, 
and I niver could hear anything of it in the daytime. 
Ah, well, sir, that was all just my boy notions. The 
fairies do be all dead, sir." 



i8o The Isle of the Shamrock 

" But there are queer things happen even if the 
fairies are all dead," I ventured to suggest. 

" Indeed there are, sir. Did you iver hear of Tom 
Taylor, sir ? Well, sir, the man that's done the most 
good in Connemara and left the most money here was 
the gintleman I mintioned — 'Tom' Taylor, we called 
him. He was a gr-reat man. He would come to 
Mulaky's hotel and stop eight weeks and spind ^4^^ 
there. He would give ^^15 apiece to his boatmen, 
and ivery one that had anything to do with Tom Tay- 
lor did get big money. 

" Whin he wint out for a day's fishin' he would take 
along a dozen of porther and a dozen of ale and a quart 
of whiskey and two or three bottles of champagne. 
Oh, he was a har-rd dr-rinker, sir, he was that ! On 
Sunday he would be havin' all sorts of races and lip- 
pin', and he payin' the best man. He was kind to the 
poor women, too, and always buying this Irish tweed 
cloth stuff from them and payin' them five shillin' a 
yard for't, though it was nothing he wanted in the 
worrld ; and he would give it to his boatmen, and very 
like the boatmen would give it back to the women 
Tom bought it of, and they'd have it to sell to him 
again, or some other man. 

" Well, sir, he had a house up here by Lough Inagh, 
and an ould man and his wife stayed there to take care 
o' the place; and, comin' on winter, one time, Tom 



Jaunting-car Journeys i8i 

went away and said he would be back such and such a 
day and month. But just after he left he died. Well, 
sir, that time he said he would be back come, and the 
ould man and his wife that was stayin' in the house 
was sleepin' in their bed that night whin they heard a 
bell dingle dangle in the hall. It was about the middle 
o' the night, and the bell kept on and kept on and 
kept on, dingle, dangle, dingle, dangle, all the time 
till the ould man said he would go and see what that 
ringin' was if he died for't. 

" So he wint out in the hall, and there was a row of 
bells there that wint to the different rooms upstairs, 
and, sir, the bell that was goin' it back'ards and for- 
'ards was the one that wint to the room what Tom 
Taylor always slep' in. The bell kep' a ringin', and 
the ould man wint on upstairs and opened Tom Tay- 
lor's door, and, sir, he said afterward he wished he'd 
stayed ablow stairs. For there was Tom's pipe layin' 
on the table with the heel of it toward him and the 
room was full of the smell of that pipe smoke, and, 
sir, it had exactly the same smell that Tom Taylor's 
tobacco smoke had when he was alive ; and that's all I 
know about it, sir." 

The road to Letterfrack for nearly the whole dis- 
tance pursued a winding course through the dull, 
interminable solitude of the bogland. The waste was 
unfenced and treeless, and only broken by the great 



1 82 The Isle of the Shamrock 

gray mountains that thrust up through the water- 
soaked peat and lifted their rocky summits into the 
misty clouds. Often we skirted along a lough with 
its surface frayed into white caps and streaked with 
foam. On one of these loughs a melancholy sports- 
man's fishing-boat was beating back and forth through 
the frothy waters. It was astonishing, the amount of 
dreary hardship the gentry fishermen would bear on 
the chance of getting a few trout and salmon. Yet the 
worse the weather the better they liked it, and there 
had been a good deal of growling this year since the 
fisTiing season began because days of clouds and chilling 
downpour had been too infrequent. 

" We wants it saft, sir," my driver explained, 
" south winds and rain. But it has been very dry, sir, 
and the wind blowin' from the north all the time this 
three weeks." 

Sometimes we had a little cluster of huts in sight on 
a far hillside with a checkering of green and yellow 
fields about them. Once we passed a cart by the road- 
side. The horse had been detached and was baiting 
near by while two men were at work a half mile distant 
in the bog. My driver said they were either cutting 
sedge for thatch, or were gathering young heather for 
stable bedding. Another characteristic bit of bogland 
life was a woman, barefoot and bareheaded, after the 
usual custom of the region, walking briskly along the 




o 



X 



Jaunting-car Journeys 183 

road knitting. She carried her ball of yarn under her 
arm, and as often as she used up the slack she unwound 
a few feet, tucked the ball back, and set her needles 
flying again. 

When we neared the end of our journey the country 
became pleasanter, the land was more fertile, there 
were patches of wood, and across a lake a handsome 
castle came into view. 

" A foine castle, that," remarked my driver, pointing 
to it with his whip, " but what will be becomin' of it 
after the lord that lives there dies ? He won't want 
to be leavin' it, and he can't take it with him, sir. I'm 
thinkin' his mind won't be aisy whin he comes to 
dyin'. He won't be thinkin' of how he dies, but he'll 
be thinkin' of his foine castle." 

Now the roadsides were lined with hedges of haw- 
thorn, furze, and alder — and, more than that, there 
were gorgeous hedges of fuchsias, which grew broad 
and thick and five or six feet high, and were all blinking 
full of pendent blossoms. A sprinkling of fuchsias 
was to be found even in the other hedges, as if they 
were so hardy and weedlike they would crowd in 
anywhere. I was the more surprised, because one 
naturally thinks of them as a tender hothouse plant. 
They do, in fact, shrink from the cold, and their pres- 
ence in the west of Ireland is due to the Gulf Stream, 
which washes the coast, and so tempers the climate 



184 The Isle of the Shamrock 

that the winters are very mild. Yet the impression 
was as if this was some work of the fairies whom my 
driver had affirmed were all dead. 

Letterfrack was a sleepy little village whose chief 
claims to attention were a genuinely comfortable hotel 
— a rarity in Ireland — and a stony mountain on the 
outskirts of the hamlet that the guide-books recom- 
mended for climbing purposes. I let others climb 
who had a liking for that sort of thing, while I spent 
the remnant of the day that remained after my long 
ride in looking about the village. The only two per- 
sons I saw who seemed to have any special occupation 
were an old beggar on crutches, posted near the hotel 
door to beseech alms, and a boy with a donkey, bring- 
ing peat to the hamlet from a roadside pile a short 
distance out on the bog. Across the middle of the 
beast that the boy drove were hung two big wicker 
panniers, and the lad as he went to and fro was perched 
on a side-saddle behind. I watched him once arrive 
at the peat stack, slip off from the donkey, and back 
the creature up to the heap. He had just begun to 
fill the panniers with the brown blocks when a dog 
broke forth into turbulent barking on a near hill. I 
looked up, and there was a rabbit leaping along like a 
streak through the grass tufts, and the dog after it. 
On they came down the hill, and the donkey boy 
caught up a stone and ran yelling toward them. He 



Jaunting-car Journeys 185 

threw the stone, but he might as well have tried to 
hit a shadow. The rabbit was across the road in an 
instant and off into the bog. Further pursuit was 
hopeless, and the boy and dog gave up the chase and 
stood looking regretfully out on the vacant moorland. 

1 went on the next morning to Leenane by " long 
car " — a vehicle very much like a shaky omnibus, 
only the seats are turned outward so that the pas- 
sengers dangle their heels over the wheels the same as 
on ajaunting-car. This particular long car was intended 
to carry eleven people besides the driver, but I imag- 
ine it could be made to convey almost any number by 
packing them into the chinks and corners. There were 
thirteen this trip. One climbed up beside the driver, 
the long seats on the sides held five each, and two 
extras roosted in the middle on the piles of baggage. 

It was a heavy load for a single pair of horses, and 
we all got off and walked up the hills. That gave us 
a chance to exercise and ward off the cramps, and some 
of us gathered blackberries along the way, or picked 
flowers. Most of the journey was across the dark, 
lonely bogland, with misty-topped mountains glower- 
ing about on the horizon. 

Leenane, which we reached toward noon, is a small 
village just back from the shore of an arm of the sea 
that reaches far inland among the bare mountains. 
As soon as 1 finished lunching, I started for a walk. 



1 86 The Isle of the Shamrock 

The road parted not far from my hotel, and, while 
I paused to consider which way I would take, my 
attention was caught by a peculiar old man standing in 
the doorway of a little shop close by. He was pom- 
pous in manner, quick and sharp in speech, and was 
always frowning and scowling with his gray eyebrows. 
A lanky lad was passing, and the man called at him 
crustily, " Come here, come here, I say ! " 

The lad stopped reluctantly and drew near. 

" Do you believe there's a God in heaven ? " in- 
quired the man. 

" I do," was the reply. 

" Then why do you go around with your mouth 
hanging open, telling lies ? " the man asked. " You 
promised me a load of lobsters yesterday by twelve 
o'clock, and you did not fetch them. I lost near five 
guineas by ye. What is your word good for, I'd like 
to know ! " 

This interview was hardly done and the lad gone, 
when another youth came along, and the old man 
stepped out to the borders of the highway and asked 
him how his father was. 

" About the same," was the reply. 

" Does he sit up ? " 

" No, he don't sit up." 

" Then he must be worse. Oh, he's not getting 
along at all ! " 




u 
z 

o 
U 



Jaunting-car Journeys 187 

The man was going to have the exact truth, no 
fooHsh building on false hopes for him, and he was 
still ferreting out the facts and laying them before the 
too optimistic young man when I went on. I kept to 
the main road, and at the end of about a mile came to 
a village lying in a basin-like hollow, scooped out 
among the mountains. All over the lower levels of 
this basin were scattered peasant cottages. There was 
never any regularity in their placing. They were 
dotted around just as it happened. Among them 
were numerous tiny patches of potatoes, oats, cabbages, 
and turnips, and on the upper hillsides cows and sheep 
were feeding. Nearly all the little stone-walled plots 
were fringed about with briers and thorn bushes, and 
in the vicinity of the cottages grew a few stunted 
trees — not fruit trees, but birches, alders, and the like, 
that sprouted up from the crevices of a garden wall, 
or that rudely hedged a bit of a yard. They no doubt 
served to some extent to shut off the wind, and they 
furnished a stick now and then when a roof needed 
mending, and an occasional handle for a farm tool. 

Many of the little grass fields had been mown, and 
the hay was in process of curing. The drying was 
hastened by raking the hay to the field corner that 
was least wet, and then winding it all up by hand in 
rolls about as large as a good-sized muff. The form 
of the rolls was such that they shed the rain, and the 



1 88 The Isle of the Shamrock 

hole in the middle let the air circulate, and helped the 
curing at such times as no rain was falling. In a cli- 
mate so showery ordinary methods of haymaking 
would be ineffective. 

Through the hollow of the glen coursed a small 
stream, and on one side of it was a rough road, but on 
the other only a muddy path which went up the hill 
and down the hill, across brooks and over hummocks, 
linking the various cottages together, and continually 
coming to an end in dooryards, and going on again 
from around the corner of a stable. The average door- 
yard was very miry, and had a great number of slimy 
cobblestones strewn about it, which, I believe, were 
intended to prevent a person from sinking in out of sight 
when the wet winter weather made all the soil a black 
morass. Still, the yards served very well as a loitering- 
place for the geese and hens and pigs, who used them 
rather more than the cottagers, if anything. The pigs 
were the most conspicuous of the farmyard creatures, 
and they were by no means confined to the home 
premises, but wandered around much as they pleased. 
They had the air of owning the country, and they did 
not run away when you approached. On the con- 
trary, they were more likely to come and root up your 
trousers leg by way of friendly investigation. Not 
infrequently the cows, pigs, and other creatures occu- 
pied the same building with their owners, and in that 



Jaunting-car Journeys 189 

case the dank manure heap outside sometimes had the 
appearance of having been thrown out of the parlor 
window. 

In my tour of the village I was watched by the 
inhabitants from fields and house-doors and the road, 
as if no stranger had ever visited the place before. 
Once a shock-headed man came out from a hovel and 
invited me in to see him weaving on an old hand 
loom. The children of the neighborhood followed me 
into the hut, and with them came a dreadful-looking 
foolish man who persisted in keeping close to me. 

The weaver kicked off his slippers and sat down 
behind the loom, and got his machine into clattering 
motion. In the gray gloom of the ill-lighted apart- 
ment, I could barely see the warp lifting and falling 
and the shuttles flying back and forth. The process 
was picturesque, but it was no pleasure watching it in 
that low, foul, dirt-floored dwelling, with the wild-look- 
ing idiot man and the staring crowd of children so close 
about. As far as the house was concerned, it was very 
like the others of the village. They were all low and 
small, with sedge-thatched roofs. Some had white- 
washed walls, which added to their outer cheerfulness, 
but inside was the same earth floor, with its inevitable 
spatterings and litter, and meagre, untidy poverty. 

In one of the homes I found a woman spinning 
wool on a great wheel, and a little pig was at her feet 



190 The Isle of the Shamrock 

with its head in the family porridge-pot. But when I 
appeared the pig went and sat down on the floor beside 
the baby, who, unless looks belied appearances, was as 
much of a rooter as the creature at his side. A few 
blocks of "turf" were smouldering in the rude fire- 
place, and, as is usual in these dwellings, much of the 
smoke found its way out into the room, and made a 
more or less tardy egress by the door, which is always 
open when any of the family are at home. A score or 
so of neighbors gathered to watch me, and, much to 
their entertainment, I tried spinning, and succeeded in 
producing a few feet of rough, uneven yarn. 

When I was preparing to leave, a half-blind old 
woman among those looking on remarked, " I hope 
your honor is going to give us something for your 
spinning — not that we'd be asking for't, but because 
you'd be wantin' to." 

Naturally a request so diplomatically put had its 
reward. 

I went on from Leenane the day following by jaunt- 
ing-car northward to Westport. The weather was as 
uncertain as usual — gray mists about the mountains, 
now dropping low, now lifting, occasional glints of 
sunshine, and, hardly less frequent, sweeps of showers 
veiling the landscape and leaving an aftermath of 
thin shreds of rainbow wandering about the lonely 
moors. 



Jaunting-car Journeys 191 

Often, when we passed near houses, the bareheaded 
children would hasten to the roadside and then run 
beside the car, silently panting, for a long distance. 
They said nothing, but were constantly looking up 
to me in the hope I would throw them pennies. 
Toward the end of the journey there were numerous 
dark peat cuttings in the bog, and over many acres 
were scattered cairns of dry peat blocks, which in places 
gathered so thickly they were quite suggestive of pri- 
meval villages. 

Presently the marshlands came to a sudden end on 
the edge of a steep declivity down which our road 
crept to Westport. There lay the village far below, 
reposing amid a greenery of trees, and there lay out- 
spread the beautiful Clew Bay, with its multitude of 
islands, while off to the left, on the mainland, rose the 
lofty cone of Croagh Patrick, looking forth from the 
dissolving clouds. This mountain is regarded as sacred 
to Erin's patron saint, who is believed to have begun 
here his mission in Ireland, and who was accustomed, 
when he was sojourning in Connaught, to retire to it at 
Lent for fasting and prayer. From its top he is said to 
have blessed Connemara, which he declined to enter 
because it looked so bleak and barren. There is also 
a tradition that he collected on Croagh Patrick all 
the serpents in Ireland and drove them thence into 
the sea ; and a certain hollow is pointed out as a place 



I pi The Isle of the Shamrock 

in which the serpents endeavored in vain to take refuge 
as they descended. 

Another interesting feature of the mountain is a 
holy well, the origin of which is of course ascribed 
to the great saint. One day, warm and thirsty with 
climbing, he wished for a drink, and instantly from 
the ground at his feet there gushed out a cool spring. 
It disappeared after he had drunk ; but many centuries 
later a good priest, poking about the neighborhood, 
took notice of a flat stone with a cross on it lying by 
the pathside. He raised the stone and a clear stream 
poured forth. An excavation, rudely walled about, 
has since been made for the spring, and in this now 
dwell two sacred trout who add much to the well's 
celebrity. The proof of their sacredness is attested by 
the fact that some years ago an heretical soldier, having 
caught one of the trout and taken it home with the 
intention of eating it, had no sooner placed it on the 
gridiron than it disappeared from before his eyes ; and 
the next day it was found in the waters of the well as 
usual, only its side bore the mark of the hot bars of 
the gridiron. 

On account of the mountain's connection with St. 
Patrick, it is celebrated as a place of religious pilgrim- 
age, and at certain seasons it is ascended by devotees 
from near and far. For my part, the saintly associa- 
tions of the mountain were not sufficient incentive in 



Jaunting-car Journeys 



^93 



themselves to induce me to make the climb, and the 
weather was too doubtful to assure the view which the 
summit affords, and which, if report is true, would have 
well repaid the labor. 




X 



AN ISLAND ON THE WILD WEST COAST 






T 



■^HE isle of 
Achill barely 
misses being a 
:|i part of the mainland, 
|| so narrow is the separat- 
ing channel. A bridge 
affords connection, and 
access is easy. It is 
reputed to contain the 
most striking scenery 
to be found on the 
wild west coast ; but 1 
got small hint of any- 
thing romantic on the 
twelve-mile ride across 
it to the island's single 
hotel at Doogort. The landscape, now dipping into 
wide valleys and now heaving into broad, rounded 
hills, or at times rising into steep mountains with 
rocky, pinnacled tops, was desolate in the extreme, 

194 




An Island on the Wild West Coast 195 

and the little reclaimed patches, with their accompany- 
ing cabins, were few and far between. Indeed, the 
island was one almost interminable bog, and its peat 
deposits, which often attain the remarkable depth of 
twenty feet, are extensive enough to supply all Ireland. 

Doogort proved to be a little settlement of white- 
washed houses on a hill slope, with a big mountain 
behind, and, close below, a small bay that the sea had 
scooped out of the land, and rimmed with a long 
curve of sandy beach. The other villages on Achill 
were even less imposing than Doogort. Nearly all of 
them were small fishing hamlets, each made up of a 
huddle of low stone houses with roofs of thatch or turf, 
on which there were apt to be sproutings of sorrel and 
grasses. I passed several such places on a jaunting- 
car trip I made the second day I was on the island, 
and in every one had a tagging of boys running after 
the car with " diamonds " for sale. Investigation 
showed that these diamonds were simply broken ame- 
thyst crystals, and the inducement to purchase did not 
seem very great. 

However, I made one diamond boy happy at a 
certain village, where I left the jaunting-car behind, 
by taking him along with me as guide on a visit I paid 
to a rocky promontory, reaching in a thin wedge far 
out into the Atlantic. The boy was, of course, bare- 
foot, and said he went so most of the year, and that 



196 The Isle of the Shamrock 

many of the Achill people never wore shoes, either 
winter or summer. He didn't when he was little. 
But now, for wear in cold weather, he had a new pair 
once in three years. 

We clambered along a rough path cut in the side of a 
slope, that descended in steep turf and rocky leaps 
from the heights far above, to the sea far below, and 
at length we came to a big stone by the pathside which 
the boy pointed out as having been a favorite seat of 
the famous Captain Boycott. It seemed that this 
notable spent his last days on Achill, near that part 
of the island where we then were, but it was on the 
mainland that he won his reputation and gave the 
language a new word. He was agent on an estate, 
and the tenantry took offence at what was regarded as 
his severity, and tried to prevent any one's dealing with 
him. The laborers refused to help in the harvesting 
and the household servants left, and the family had to 
do their own work as best they could. No one dared 
to sell them provisions, and there was danger that the 
agent would be starved and ruined, if he was not 
killed by the riotous peasantry. Matters finally be- 
came so serious that a large body of soldiers was sent 
to protect him. Besides intimidating the boycotters, 
the soldiers assisted in the forsaken fields, and, as they 
had to have food, the captain sold them, at a good 
profit, the produce they helped to harvest. Thus the 




o 



An Island on the Wild West Coast 197 

first boycott not only failed, but the man against whom 
it was aimed made money on it. 

The day's weather was a curious medley of dull 
clouds and of bright sunshine. For a while the sky 
would be gentle and soft and summery to perfection ; 
then it would turn frowning and dark, the mountains 
would be shrouded, the gloomy shadows gather over 
the bogs, and presently the cold rain would come 
sweeping down from the high slopes and go driving in 
gray mists across the sea. I encountered one of these 
showers while 1 was still on the path, and hastened to 
raise my umbrella, and sat down on a convenient hum- 
mock to await its passing. The boy, at the same time, 
crawled into the lee of a bank just above. From this 
high perch I had in sight a fine sweep of lofty cliffs 
extending along the coast, until lost to view in the 
hazy distance. Seaward there were frequent rocky 
islets girt about by the foaming waves tearing cease- 
lessly at their crumbling ramparts, and, near at hand, 
feeding peacefully on the steep slope, were a few cows 
and several flocks of goats and sheep. 

I lingered where I sat for some time after the rain 
had ceased falling, and presently along came a party 
of tourists, ascending with the intent to climb to the 
topmost height of the promontory. Three natives 
were in attendance, one with a hamper on his back, 
another loaded with a bag of peats, and the third, a 



198 The Isle of the Shamrock 

boy, at the rear of the procession, bearing a teapot. 
I was cordially invited to join this caravan, but I con- 
cluded instead to return to my car. The driver was 
waiting for me with the information that there was just 
time to get to the " Cathedral Cliffs " before high tide, 
which would make them inaccessible. As it was, we 
would have to race for them, he said. So off we went 
by a short cut along the shore — a straight three miles 
of hard, wet beach that held reflections like a mirror, 
and over which the horse padded very fast and 
smoothly. Then we came to a muddy torrent right 
athwart our course, so fierce and loud I thought it 
would sweep us out to sea if we attempted crossing. 
But into it we drove and picked a careful passage to 
the farther side and hurried on once more. 

Finally the beach ended abruptly in a line of great 
cliffs that the waves had chiselled into stupendous 
caverns and arches. The rock that formed the bluffs 
was in layers distinct enough in their marking to look 
at a little distance as if they were man's handiwork. 
One section that was particularly fine took the form 
of fretted columns, and, overhead, a green bank sloped 
down from far above like a roof, giving the whole quite 
the appearance of a big church. 

To get a closer view of this temple of nature I left 
the car, and walked along at the foot of the crags over 
a beach strewn with rounded stones and brightened 



An Island on the Wild West Coast 199 

with shreds of seaweed from the distant tropics. The 
tide was fast rising and the waves were roaring on the 
strand, and sliding in farther and farther and trimming 
it narrower each moment. Already the green water 
had invaded the outer arches of the cathedral. But 
the spot was a grand one, and I stayed on until I heard 
the faint shout of my driver behind me, and saw him 
standing up in the car and waving his whip excitedly. 
I took warning and started back ; where there were 
smooth stretches I ran, and when I reached the car 
and clambered aboard the driver lashed his horse and 
we were off at a gallop. The sandy beach, which a 
little before was many rods wide, was now a mere rib- 
bon, and the waves, stealthy, powerful, insistent, in a 
minute more would wipe it out altogether. I clung to 
the car, the horse raced, and, at the last moment, with 
the waves lapping about the wheel-spokes, we turned 
sharply aside and climbed over a great ridge of pebbles, 
and were on the firm turf beyond the reach of the 
hungry sea, which had taken full possession of the 
beach we had just left. 

We now went on back to Doogort ; and when we 
arrived, about four in the afternoon, I took a fancy to 
get a downlook on the country from the mountain near 
the hotel. This mountain was twenty-two hundred feet 
high, but the guide-books and the people at the hotel 
said the ascent was easy, and I started with cheerful 



200 The Isle of the Shamrock 

anticipations. I went up a village lane that soon car- 
ried me beyond the little group of houses and huddling 
fields into the marshlands. Then I followed the top 
of a turfed wall for a time, and after that jumped along 
on the tussocks of the bog, avoiding the wet hollows as 
much as possible. The bog did not keep to the lower 
slopes, as I expected, but went up and up, and the whole 
mountain side was wrapped with its miry mosses. The 
spongy earth, thickly hidden by grasses and heather, 
was soaking, and the water came squeezing out in quan- 
tities with every footstep. It was steep, hard work. 

At length I came to the edge of a precipice that 
looked as if half the mountain on the seaward side 
had slid away, and along the verge of this cliff I 
continued to zigzag for a long time, getting higher and 
higher and more and more tired. The wind blew in 
rough gusts that in the exposed places threatened to 
carry me away, and every little while a shower came 
pelting down, and I would hunt up a boulder for a 
seat and huddle beneath my umbrella. On ahead 
rose a pinnacle of rocks toward which I had been long 
striving. I had thought this projection would be near 
the summit, but when I actually gained it I saw that 
the crown of the mountain was still far skyward. 
Apparently I had only come about halfway, and the 
rest of the distance was all strewn with splintered rock 
and was worse than the bog I had been climbing 




u 



u 

u 
X 



An Island on the Wild West Coast 201 

through. Below lay the world spread out like a map 
— hills and valleys, villages, roads, a lake, the sea, 
several islands, and, far off eastward, the dim mainland, 
while over all hovered the wraiths of the doubtful, 
oft-changing weather — fog, showers, cloud shadows, 
gleams of sunlight, and now and then a vague rain- 
bow. High above me, marked by a flagstaff, was the 
mountain summit, one minute lost in a whirl of mists 
and wild clouds, and the next minute coming forth 
clear and powerful and beckoning me upward. 

But it was of no use. The experience in climbing 
to the point already attained was sufficient, and I now 
went jolting and slipping on the rough journey down- 
ward. When I reached the hotel I made a reckon- 
ing of the number of showers I had been out in that 
day, and could recall nine. Besides these, several 
others preceded my start in the morning, or fell after 
I returned in the evening. 

I had finished dining and gone to my room, when 
some commotion outside drew me to the window. 
There, on a wall close below, lay the long, sleek body 
of a seal, shot that day by a hotel guest, on an islet 
fifteen miles distant. The caverns of this islet are a 
famous haunt of the seals, and parties frequently row 
out to have a try at the game. The seals are of one 
of the coarser species, and the skins have little value, 
save as trophies of the hunt to decorate, in the form of 
rugs, the sportsmen's homes. 



202 The Isle of the Shamrock 

It was the custom of the guests at this Doogort 
hostelry to gather in the parlor evenings to chat, and 
to hear the landlord tell stories. I found a company 
of fifteen or twenty there when I came down from my 
room. A tall Englishman was discoursing about the 
day's shooting on the seal island. He said that the 
natives were disinclined themselves to molest the beasts, 
as they believed the seals were human souls, allowed 
by special grace to survive the deluge, and in this 
shape to await the last judgment. He added that one 
of his rowers told him he had seen a mermaid in 
Achill waters the year before, and that five other men, 
who were with him at the time, had also seen her. 
She was at first swimming toward them, and they dis- 
tinctly observed her woman's face and her long hair 
floating behind. Then she turned and swam away, 
and they saw she had a scaly body like a fish. 

This reminded one of the company gathered about 
the peat fire in the hotel parlor, that only the other 
day, in Tipperary, some men took an old woman, who 
was said to be a fairy, and scorched her in the fire to 
drive out the evil spirit. They burned the old woman 
horribly, and it was doubtful if she could live. 

Next our landlord took a turn. He said : " A good 
many believe that the fairies will spirit away children. 
They will carry off a healthy child and leave instead a 
weazened little dwarf. One day they played that trick 



An Island on the Wild West Coast 203 

on a tailor, and he kept the dwarf several years and it 
didn't grow any, and was just the same shrivelled little 
thing it was in the beginning. Finally, the tailor made 
up his mind what the matter was. So he heated his 
goose red-hot and held it over the dwarf, and said, 
* Now, get out of here — I know you ! ' 

" But the dwarf never let on it noticed him ; and 
the tailor lowered the goose little by little till it almost 
touched the dwarf's face. Then the dwarf spoke and 
said, ' Well, I'll leave, but first you go to the door 
and look round the corner.' 

"The man knew if he did that the dwarf would get 
the best of him, and he said he would not. Then the 
dwarf saw 'twas no use, and it sprang out of the cradle 
and went roaring and cackling up the chimney, and a 
good child lay there in its place. 

" I had one queer experience myself. It was the 
time of the Fenian troubles. I was sitting up late, 
— I suppose it must have been after midnight, — but 
I hadn't taken anything, and was as sober as I am this 
minute. Well, it got to be very late, as I said, and 
by and by I heard strange noises in the hall. It was 
like men tramping past, and they kept going and go- 
ing, hundreds of them, and they were dragging dead 
bodies and all that. I could hear their breathing, and 
I could hear their clothing rub along against the walls. 
Then the ceiling and the sides of the room I was in 



204 The Isle of the Shamrock 

began to wave. I took a candle and went out in the 
hall, and there was nothing there, doors all fastened, 
everything all right. Now, what do you make out of 
that ? I never have been able to account for it myself. 
" That reminds me of the Achill girl that went 
to service in Dublin. She got a good place — 
wages and work and everything were perfectly satis- 
factory ; but there was one room in the house that 
she wasn't allowed to go into, and that troubled 
her. She saw a great many people go into that room, 
and she never saw any of them come out. The 
room was always quiet-like, and always kept locked, 
and the girl never had a chance to see it, till one day, 
when the house folks all happened to be away, she 
found they had left the key in the door of that room. 
So she went in, and what did she see there but rows 
and rows of heads — heads of beautiful ladies — heads 
severed from the bodies, and the long hair hanging 
down — yes, rows and rows of them ; and the girl 
like to have fainted, and she got out of there in a 
hurry and went to her chamber and gathered up all her 
belongings and came home — never notified the police 
nor nothing. But I'll tell you what my idea is. I 
think it was a barber's shop she looked into, and the 
customers went in one door, and out another that she 
didn't know about, and it was just wigs, and such 
fixings, she saw." 



An Island on the Wild West Coast 205 

The company laughed and commented jokingly, but 
presently lapsed into silence and contemplatively eyed 
the glow in the fireplace. Then the landlord asked if 
we had ever heard of the Achill hat. He said that in 
the olden time a hat was an article that the Achill man 
never wore while on his native island. But when he 
went to the mainland he preferred to look like the 
rest of the world, and at Achill Sound, where the 
people boated themselves across, a single hat was kept 
on a pole. When a man was going to town on the 
mainland he climbed the pole and got the hat. On 
returning he shinned the pole again and left the hat 
for the use of the next man. 

Following this story, the landlord told of a wreck 
that makes the saddest chapter in all Achill's history. 
Many of the young men and women of the island 
spend a part of every summer in Scotland helping 
in the potato harvest. They go by steamer from 
Westport, and there are those who walk the whole 
forty miles thither, but most make the journey on 
some fishing smack. A few years ago, when prep- 
arations were being made for the annual exodus, 
a man who owned an old hooker was engaged 
to carry a large party down to Westport and put 
them aboard the Glasgow steamer. The hooker was 
only allowed by law to carry forty persons, but the 
owner was to get a shilling apiece, and, intent on mak- 



2o6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

ing all the profit he could, he took on sixty-eight. 
The day was quiet, with just enough wind blowing to 
make it pleasant sailing, and Westport was reached all 
right. They were in the harbor and within half a 
mile of the quay, when some one called out that the 
Glasgow boat was close by. 

The young people all hastened to one side to look, 
and at the same time the hooker approached the 
steamer in such a way that the big boat's hull took all 
the wind out of the hooker's sails, and it went over at 
once, and those sixty-eight Achill folk were clinging 
together and struggling in the water. Thirty-eight of 
them were drowned, and the next day thirty-eight cof- 
fins with the bodies in them came up by special train 
to Achill Sound. 

All the population of the island was at the station 
to meet them — a thousand people or more, and there 
were sore hearts in Achill that day. One family lost 
five, others four, three, and two. The man who owned 
the hooker drew his boat up on the beach, and there it 
lies to this day. Those who escaped drowning returned 
to Achill and gave up going to Scotland, and they 
never have got the better of their fright, and never 
will, the landlord said. 

Of the homes on the island he related that it was 
customary to keep the cows and pigs in the living 
room, and when there was a pony it was usually tied 



An Island on the Wild West Coast 207 

to the foot of the bed. The chickens occupied the 
same apartment, laid their eggs in any part of the 
room they found convenient, and roosted on the rungs 
of the table. Indeed, the people are so poverty- 
stricken that the home conditions could hardly be 
otherwise than comfortless and barren to the last 
degree. A decade or so ago they were almost starv- 
ing through the failure of their crops and many were 
assisted to free emigration across the Atlantic. Since 
the bridge has been built and the railroad has come, 
the facilities for marketing their fish and farm produce 
are greatly improved, and the ordinary necessities of 
life are within easier reach than they once were. Yet 
the lacks are still serious, and I have never seen a 
region more boggy, storm swept, and desolate. 







^:mr:ts* 



XI 



A BOGLAND SCHOOLMASTER 



FORMERLY the school- 
house had been a dwell- 
ing, and a family still 
lived in one end. It was close 
by the roadside, a low, 
thatched building, just 
like any peasant's cabin, 
save for a small wooden 
sign on its front, lettered 
in bold type, " Luckawn 
National School." The 
day was dull and threat- 
ened rain. Indoor shelter 
seemed more desirable 
than outdoor rambling, and, enticed by the drone of 
child voices, I rapped on the patched and decrepit 
schoolhouse door. The schoolmaster opened it. He 
was a tall lank man with tumbled hair and a ragged 
brown beard, and looked as if he had been having 

20S 




A Bogland Schoolmaster 209 

exciting times. He wore an overcoat that hung limply 
from his sloping shoulders ; there was a great square 
patch on one knee; his collar had long been a stranger 
to water and starch, and his necktie was frayed and out 
of place. He peered at me through his spectacles from 
the low doorway, and when he had recovered from his 
surprise at so unusual an occurrence as the advent of a 
visitor, he made me welcome. 

The school occupied a single small room, and had 
to get along without a hall or even a closet. Such 
of the boys as wore caps and such of the girls as wore 
shawls, a garment commonly serving the double pur- 
pose of wrap and head-covering, bestowed these arti- 
cles of raiment in an aperture where once had been a 
window. Overhead was no ceiling other than the raf- 
ters and cross strips supporting the thatch, shadowy 
and begrimed, and draped with sooty cobwebs. Three 
small windows admitted Hght through the thick walls, 
but were far from successful in coping adequately with 
the gloom of the apartment. They had cracks about 
them, and so had the shabby door, and the smoky 
little fireplace could hardly have done more than miti- 
gate the chill of the room in really cold weather. 

Long, rude desks, with accompanying backless 
benches, filled about half the floor space. The children 
were nearly all barefoot, and their clothing was ragged 
and much patched. The master said he encouraged 



2IO The Isle of the Shamrock 

them to go barefoot, and he wished they all did. He 
believed it was healthier, but his chief reason was that 
the expense of shoes was too great for some ; and yet 
if the habit of wearing them was general among the 
more prosperous, pride would force the others to have 
them also. A few came barefoot to school right 
through the winter, but all of the children and the 
women of the region, too, had shoes for wear to Sunday 
mass, though many of them ought not to have been 
guilty of such extravagance. 

In one corner stood the master's small, much- 
battered desk, that, after all, was less a desk than it 
was a cupboard to hold the lesson books, slates, and 
other school materials. What the space underneath 
the desk failed to accommodate was stowed close by 
in a box, or leaned against the wall, or was heaped up 
on the floor. The school supplies were of the cheapest 
possible description, usually much the worse for wear. 
Most of the books were thin little affairs in limp 
cloth covers that cost only a cent or two. The paper 
was coarse, the illustrations rude, and the printing 
very bad. Their literary and pedagogic merits were 
not much better. Books and other necessaries were 
bought by the master, and the children were supposed 
to pay him for what they used. But it was a very 
poor district, and those who reimbursed him were the 
exception rather than the rule. 




Qi 



U 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 211 

The master had brought the only chair the room 
contained from behind his desk for me when I entered, 
and I sat down to look on while the school continued 
its work. My knock had interrupted the roll-call. 
This was resumed, and the master checked off the 
remaining names on his register. At the same time 
one of the boys stood on the floor with a slate in his 
hands and counted those present — eighteen boys and 
fourteen girls. That done the master made a reckon- 
ing to be sure his register and the boy's figures agreed, 
and then noted down the numbers and the total on a 
small blackboard hung near the fireplace next to a 
silent, broken-glassed clock. The attendance was 
about the average for that time of year ; but in winter, 
when the young folks, who during the summer are off 
to service in richer and more fertile sections, are home, 
he often had a school of sixty. That was too many 
for one person to instruct effectively in so small a 
room, and he did not try to do much teaching. His 
efforts were absorbed in the attempt to keep them 
employed and out of mischief. Some of the winter 
scholars were eighteen years old, but none came over 
thirteen in summer. Two hundred days made a 
school year. Few of the pupils, however, were pres- 
ent more than half the time, the master said, for 
neither they nor their parents cared whether they got 
any education or not. 



212 The Isle of the Shamrock 

In their studying the children were noisy, restless, 
and chaotic. They conned their lessons in whispers 
or aloud ; they moved about and even stood on their 
benches ; they played, and they drew pictures on their 
slates, and they spoke to each other freely and some- 
times had sharp-voiced disputes. One of the smaller 
boys spent most of his time crawling about on the 
floor. 

The teaching and keeping of order were in part 
intrusted to several of the older scholars, who took 
turns in trying to make the children in the seats attend 
to their studies and in putting questions to classes on 
the floor. Often there were two such classes out at the 
same time, one in a far corner studying a dingy wall 
chart or map, and another standing in a little group 
near a window, reading or spelling, or going over an 
arithmetic lesson. The members of these classes were 
an unruly lot, and cared little for the authority of their 
schoolmate teachers. The monitors did their best to 
live up to their positions by rapping the delinquents 
over the head with a pointer ; but such treatment was 
not always meekly tolerated, and I noticed in par- 
ticular one spunky little girl who never failed to slap 
back. Yet she and all the rest were afraid of the mas- 
ter and quailed before him. Most of them had a 
worried, harassed look, as if in constant fear of im- 
pending disaster, and not without reason. 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 213 

The master was naturally kindly, fond of children, 
and had the welfare of the neighborhood much at 
heart. But from old-fashioned habit and theory he 
was a tyrant in his petty realm, though he may have 
been that day more autocratic than usual, with intent 
to impress on me his earnest purpose to do his work 
thoroughly. His voice and manner were severe and 
explosive, and the children seemed to regard him as a 
perfect ogre. In an intermittent way he made the 
whole school feel the rigor of his rule, and the poor 
monitors, whose trials I thought were heavy enough 
already, came in for a generous share of his contumely. 

"Are they working, girl?" his rasping voice in- 
quires of a barefoot thirteen-year-old with a ragamuffin 
geography class. " They are not, indeed ! " and he 
makes a hop to her across the floor like a Jack-in-the- 
box, and administers a cuff on the ear. Then he 
skirmishes about with flying arms and gives the whole 
class a disciplining. 

" Now, boy," says he, returning to his own class and 
indicating a youngster before him, who had neglected 
his book to watch the descent on the geography stu- 
dents, " what are you doing ? " 

He gives the boy a push, and taps him on the side 
of the head with a pointer. That pointer was the 
master's sceptre. He could give most startling raps 
with it on his desk, he could rattle it with ominous 



214 The Isle of the Shamrock 

warning on the covers of the book he held in his hand, 
and he was constantly using it more or less energeti- 
cally on his scholars' craniums. Physical force in the 
form of a shove or a slap was his favorite method of 
straightening the pupils into position, and he often 
accelerated an individual's progress to and from class 
by reaching out his hand to the back of the culprit's 
head, and making him or her break into a little 
run. 

" Blow up that fire, boy ! " he commanded of a sud- 
den. The lad chosen for the task dropped as if he 
had been shot, and so escaped the hastening hand 
which was about to catch him. On his knees, with 
cheeks distended he blew brightness into the smoulder- 
ing coals on the low hearth, and then added fresh fuel 
from a little heap of peat blocks lying near on the 
broken and patched floor. This peat was supplied the 
year through by the children themselves, who brought 
it from home, a few sods at a time, in their hands. 
The replenished fire began to blaze and to smoke, and 
the room grew so hazy that the master had the boy 
open the door, and put a stone against its base to keep 
it open for a time. 

The youngest child in the squad lined up before 
the master was a boy of six, in skirts, who did him- 
self credit by reading a lesson of four-letter words 
without a mistake. On the strength of this success. 




The Teacher at Home 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 215 

the master tried him on something harder, and he 
soon struck a word that brought him to a full stop. 

" Go on now, like a man," encouraged the master, 
looking over the rims of his spectacles with his head a 
little on one side. 

The boy regarded his book attentively, and scratched 
the back of one foot with the toes of the other, all to 
no purpose. 

" You're stuck ! " cried the master. 

The boy sounded the first letters of the word, and 
stopped again. 

" That's right ! " the master exclaimed, leaning for- 
ward with hopeful intentness. " You have it in your 
lips — speak up ! " 

But the boy failed his instructor at this crisis, and 
the master turned regretfully away. " Tell him, any 
one in the class," he said. 

Just then he noted that a girl in the seats was the 
centre of a small riot, and he called out, " Mary Ann, 
will you conduct yourself? " 

Mary Ann conducted herself, and the reading lesson 
proceeded. One of the older boys took a turn, but 
he stumbled over his words sadly, and the master's 
wrath promptly rose. " You are not watching, you 
sleepy thing, you ! " said he, and he gave the lad a 
punch by way of emphasis. " Put some life into it, sir ! 
Begin again, and read that as a Christian should ! " 



2i6 The Isle of the Shamrock 

The boy did as he was bid, but in his fright stam- 
mered worse than ever. " You must do better than 
that," the master ordered, " or I'll pitch the nose off 
from you ! Put your finger on the words, now ! " 

After the reading came spelling, beginning with the 
word " larch," which fell to one of the girls. She 
looked around doubtfully. 

" Spell it like a good girl," coaxed the master ; and 
she responded in hasty falsetto, " L-r-r-c-hetch." 

That was correct, for the Irish pronounce <3 and r ex- 
actly alike. Their h also has an un-American individ- 
uality, while the final letter of the alphabet they call 
zed. But nothing in the spelling-lesson seemed to me 
quite so astonishing as to have the master presently 
give out whole sentences for the children to spell 
through, as, for instance, "All birds come from eggs." 
This, and other sentences, even longer, were wrestled 
with more or less successfully, just as if they had been 
many-syllabled words. 

The master handed me one of the books from which 
the children had been reciting. It was a fresh copy 
from a small grocer's box behind his desk, and its 
only blemish was a corner that had been nibbled by 
the schoolroom mice. The cover was of flexible red 
cloth, and looked bright, modern, and attractive. On 
it was stamped the name, " First Book of Lessons," 
and the price, "one half-penny." The title-page 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 217 

showed that it was " printed and published by direc- 
tion of the Commissioners of National Education, 
Ireland." It was not then a local schoolbook, but 
one prepared for general use, and I was a little aston- 
ished when I turned over the leaves to find it remi- 
niscent of our American schoolbooks of fifty or 
seventy-five years ago. I noted that it had a flavor 
of unconscious Irish humor, and that the dry educa- 
tional method adopted for its framework was clothed 
with a phrasing and an uncertainty of what was coming 
next, that, to a reader not a native, was full of surprise 
and entertainment. 

Lesson I. contained the picture of an ox, above 
which was a line of disconnected letters that looked 
like some mystic word — a i m n o s t x y. Below 
the picture were the following remarks : — 

an ox, my ox, is it an ox ? 
it is, is it so, is it my ox ? 
no ox, so it is, is it so ? no. 

The ox was honored with a first place in the book 
because it could be spelled with two letters, while none 
of the other animals at all familiar can be spelled with 
less than three. In the first four lessons no word of 
over two letters was allowed. Then followed eight 
lessons where the limit was three-letter words, and not 
till more than fifty of the sixty-four pages were passed 
was there any word exceeding one syllable. 



21 8 The Isle of the Shamrock 

Such sentences as the following were characteristic 
of Lessons II. and III. : — 

is he up or no ? 
lo, we go. 

And there was this odd dialogue concerning j, z and 
certain of the other letters : — 

is he at j, or at z ? 
he is at z ; I am at j. 

is it q ? no, it is p. 
is it V ? no, it is u. 

The comments on these last four letters sound con- 
tradictory and too much like juggling with the truth, 
but I suppose the intention was simply to furnish a 
clever devise for making a child recognize the differ- 
ence between letters that resembled each other closely. 
It seemed to be the compiler's idea that this sort of 
thing was a most valuable educational principle, and 
right through the book no effort was spared to bring 
near together words that were similar in length, sound, 
and look, no matter how unrelated the sentences. 

On page 5 I found that time-honored statement, 
" The cat has a rat," beginning a paragraph which 
went on and seemingly spoke of the rat thus — "Can 
it be Sam or Pat? It is Sam." The reason why it 
was Sam and not Pat was apparently explained in 
the next two sentences, which affirmed that " Pat had 
on a hat. He sat on a mat." If that does not satisfy 
you that Pat was not the rat, what will ? 




The Schoolmaster's Wife 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 219 

Pat was a favorite hero of these little lessons, 
though he had to share prominence with Joe, Ned, 
Tom, Mat, and a number of other boys whose 
names were shortened in the same way. Leading 
characters among the girls were Bess, Jane, Eva, and 
Rose. 

The book did not fail to inculcate good principles. 
In one of the earlier lessons, for instance, after inquir- 
ing, without any preliminary reference to the article 
mentioned, " Is it a pin or a pen ? " as if you would be 
likely to confuse the two, the text abruptly declared, 
" I will do no sin." This skipping from one topic 
to another in the patchwork of the paragraphs was 
further exemplified in the following mixture of milk, 
tar, and morals in three consecutive sentences : " There 
is milk in the jar. Tar is put on a rope. It is sad to 
be at war." 

Like plums in a pudding religious maxims were 
scattered all through the book — not in any discern- 
ible order, but as if the compiler had tucked them in 
here and there by chance whenever the idea occurred 
to him. The theology, like the pedagogy of the book, 
gradually developed, and on page 24 I found at the 
end of a purely secular lesson a complete paragraph 
devoted to the subject : — 

" God loves us, and sent his Son to save us. The 
word of God tells us to love him. If we are bad God 



220 The Isle of the Shamrock 

will not love us, and we shall not go to him, when we 
go from this world." 

It seemed a pity to present God to the child mind 
in so forbidding an aspect. The sequence and con- 
nection found in the above were lacking in most 
parts of the book, and the religious element was usu- 
ally minimized by what followed or preceded it, as in 
this : " To do ill is a sin. Can you run far ? " Or 
this : " Sound the horn. A child of the dust should 
not be proud." Running may have some vague con- 
nection with sinning, but what has sounding the horn 
to do with pride? Here is still another example of 
the same sort : " Is he friend or foe ? Have you hurt 
your toe ? A good boy will not tell a lie. Sin is the 
cause of all our woe." 

Science found a place in the book in random remarks 
like: "Gold is not white as tin is," "A snail can put 
out his horns and draw them in," " The moon gives 
light by night, and the sun by day." 

The primer had frequent pictures which, while not 
without interest, were uniformly rude and blotty. 
The text below the picture of the ox, to which I have 
referred, though a trifle uncertain in its comments on 
the creature, sticks to the one subject. The more 
usual relations of the picture to the text are better 
illustrated by another lesson a few pages farther along. 
The cut represented a man in a big coat, carrying a 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 221 

basket on his arm, and hobbling along with the aid of 
a cane. He had his dog with him, while two goats 
were feeding on the near hillside, and in the distance 
there was a small house. The first sentence, appar- 
ently speaking of the man, said, " He was born in a 
house on the hill." Then came the question, " Is 
rice a kind of corn ? " Afterward, so far as one can 
judge, we return to the man with the remark, " He 
wants a firm kind of cord." Why he wants a firm 
kind of cord is left a mystery, for the rest of the lesson 
is : " Get me a cork for the ink jar. The morn 
is the first part of the day. This is my son; I 
hope you will like him. My son, sin not, for God 
hates sin." 

I will quote one more full lesson to show the 
capacity of a paragraph for condensed chaos and 
picturesque variety. 

" Can a worm walk ? No, it has no feet ; but it 
can creep. The child is sick ; tell her not to cry ; 
let her stay in bed and sleep. This cliff is steep, and 
I feel my head light as I look down. Did you meet 
Fred in the street? Weep no more. My boot is too 
tight ; it hurts my foot, and I am lame. Will you 
drive the sheep home for me ? " 

In the last third of the book the lessons changed in 
style and each confined itself to one subject. A fair 
example of this was the lesson about 



212 The Isle of the Shamrock 

'*Z\}t Cob), 

" The cow is one of those beasts that chew the cud. 
She is of great use to us. She gives us nice milk to 
drink ; her flesh, which we call beef, is good for food, 
and her hide makes us shoes and boots. Of the 
bones of the cow we make combs and spoons ; and 
of her fat we make soap, so that each part of her is of 
use. We ought to be kind to the cow which gives us 
such good things." 

That is realism with a vengeance. Just think of 
the milk we have now from the cow, and of the beef 
and leather, spoons and soap, that are in prospect ! 

The volume as a whole did not seem to me calcu- 
lated to stimulate very much a child's love of knowledge 
or literature, yet it seemed to serve the purpose of un- 
locking the doors of learning to these Luckawn young- 
sters, and I fancy there may have been something in 
its style peculiarly adapted to the Irish temperament. 

The pupil who had the most distressing experience 
during my school visit was a mild, red-headed boy about 
eleven years old. He failed in his grammar, and the 
master set him to doing his task over again — a dread- 
ful purgatory of parsing. Half an hour later the 
boy's ideas proved to be as hazy as ever. There he 
stood, with his hanging head, alone before the master, 
who called him a " villain " and a " scoundrel " and 







k ''^ 



^. 



^ 






^ 



U >»; 



<« 









M ». 














A Bogland Schoolmaster 213 

added, " You're the laziest feller ever I met ! Now, 
try that again ! Ah, worse and worse ! That's ter- 
rible ! That's the way ye'll do with the inspector," 
and he mocked the boy with cutting sarcasm. 

" Now, answer me this ! " he continued. " Is that 
worrud a verrub or isn't it a verrub ? " 

But the boy, breathless, and half scared to death, 
stood like a confessed criminal awaiting sentence. 
The master's rage waxed keener, and his voice rose 
stormily, " Say it out ! " he shouted, " or I'll put your 
head on the other side of your face ! I'll throw you 
out of the door for disgracin* the school ! " and he 
knocked the grammar out of the lad's hand onto the 
floor. 

" Now, pick that up and give it to me ! " was his 
next command; "quickly, quick ! " 

The boy obeyed. He was crying and the tears were 
trickling down ; but the master hushed him up and 
said, still wrathfully, " Clean your nose, boy ! Hurry, 
or I'll get Anthony Kelly to come up and clean it ! " 

Then the master once more had his pupil try the 
grammar lesson, and that not availing, he in despair 
dashed the book in the boy's face, and sent him 
weeping to his seat. 

It was the most volcanic performance I had ever 
seen in a schoolroom, and I was a good deal disturbed. 
Perhaps the master noticed this, for he hastened to 



224 The Isle of the Shamrock 

explain that the boy was his own, or he would not 
have been so sharp. I left soon afterward, but not 
before the master had given me an urgent invita- 
tion to call on him in the evening. He wanted to 
talk about America. That boy of his, he was afraid, 
with all his teaching, would be no scholar. He did 
not seem to take to book-learning, and he would have 
to work with his hands for a living, and his father was 
thinking America would be the best place for the lad. 

I accepted the master's invitation, and on my way 
to his home that evening was passing the schoolhouse, 
when someone rapped to me on a window. It was 
the master. He said he often worked there at his 
desk, after school hours, as long as he could see, for he 
was going to take examinations soon, in the hope to 
gain a promotion. As a younger man he had been 
too fond of the drink, and he keenly regretted those 
years wasted in dissipation, and felt he must now make 
up for lost time. 

He gave up drinking to become a member of the 
Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society — an organi- 
zation which has branches, not only throughout Ireland, 
but in all parts of the world to which the Irish have 
emigrated. Its founder, born in 1790, was a priest of 
the order of Capuchins in the city of Cork. His 
disposition was singularly charitable and benevolent, 
and his gentleness and affability, his simple and effec- 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 225 

tive eloquence, and the zeal with which he discharged 
the duties of his ministry, won for him the universal 
love and respect alike of rich and poor. He is de- 
scribed as a man somewhat above the middle size, his 
features handsome and expressive, and at the same 
time peculiarly mild and gracious, his manner persua- 
sive and easy, and humble without a shadow of affec- 
tation, his voice low and musical. No one could have 
been better fitted to obtain influence over a people 
proverbially swayed by the affections. 

Previous to Father Mathew's time drunkenness 
lacked little of being esteemed a positive virtue in 
Ireland. Among the higher classes the host who 
suffered one of his guests to leave his table sober 
would have been considered mean and inhospitable. 
Ingenious devices were invented for compelling intoxi- 
cation, such as glasses and bottles so formed that they 
could not stand, and must be emptied before they were 
laid on the table. If it was thought that a departing 
guest in " the good ould times " would be able to 
mount his horse without assistance, he was presented 
at the door with a quart glass which he was forced to 
drain, seldom against his will. An Irishman drunk 
was an Irishman " all in his glory," and the more 
whiskey he could carry the greater the distinction. 
The lower classes were by no means behind the gentry 
in their love of strong drink, and few of their popular 

Q 



226 The Isle of the Shamrock 

songs were without some reference to whiskey, while 
its praise was the sole theme of many of their ditties. 

Such was the situation when Father Mathew, at the 
age of forty-eight, inaugurated the temperance move- 
ment associated with his name. At first the society 
was wholly local, but Father Mathew's marvellous suc- 
cess in Cork led to the suggestion that he should visit 
other cities. He made a tour of Ireland, and later 
crossed the channel and made his plea in the larger 
centres of Irish population in England and Scotland. 
Everywhere he won followers in great numbers. The 
formalities of joining the society partook of the reli- 
gious, and were accompanied by the presentation of a 
medal, to which the utmost reverence was attached by 
the recipient; and an opinion prevailed among the 
more ignorant that the mission of the " apostle of 
temperance " was marked by many miraculous mani- 
festations of the assistance of heaven. It was believed 
he had the power to heal diseases and preserve his 
followers from all spiritual and physical dangers. 

The association included a large proportion of the 
adult population of Ireland, without regard to rank, 
creed, or sex ; and so complete was the revolution in 
the habits of the people, that numerous distilleries 
and breweries ceased working. Among those who 
suffered loss for this reason were the members of 
Father Mathew's own family, who were largely inter- 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 227 

ested in the distilling trade. Father Mathew himself 
in his latter years was pecuniarily embarrassed by 
engagements into which he entered in the course of 
his philanthropic labors. Very large sums of money 
passed through his hands, but the munificence of his 
charities and the enormous expenses connected with 
his various missions, and perhaps his own unworldly 
and improvident habits involved him in painful diffi- 
culties. He died in 1856, but the fruit of his labors 
is still visible. Many of those enrolled in the associa- 
tion have not kept their pledges, yet they rarely relapsed 
into the extreme of drunkenness, and the general tone 
of public opinion as regards the use of intoxicating 
drinks underwent a complete and enduring change. 
The home of the Luckawn schoolmaster was a half- 
mile up the road from the hovel in which he taught. 
In outer appearance it was very like the cottages of 
his neighbors — whitewashed stone with a thatch roof. 
Inside it was neater than the average, and the furniture 
was better, and there was more of it. Still, the house, 
in all its belongings, was about as humble as it could 
be with any comfort. Its two rooms were both open 
to the rafters, and their floors were of uneven cement. 
I met the master's half-dozen children, most of whom 
I had previously seen in school, and I met his wife, 
who wore over her head a kerchief after the manner 
common among the peasant women of the region. 



22 8 The Isle of the Shamrock 

She set forth a lunch for the master and me in the 
bedroom adjoining the kitchen — tea, and goat's milk, 
and bread with caraway seeds in it. After we had 
eaten, and the master had crossed himself, he called for 
his pipe and sat down on a low bench by the kitchen 
fireplace for a smoke. That finished, he was ready for 
a walk. 

We went in the waning evening light a mile or 
two up the valley. On ahead, looming hazily against 
the horizon sky, was one blue peak, but the view other- 
wise was of a bogland glen, barren and craggy, with a 
little river wandering through it, and scattered farm 
cabins clinging along the slopes. The master had a 
real affection for the valley, and was continually calling 
my attention to some phase of it — a glimpse of the 
stream, a curve of the road, or a green bush on a hill- 
side — and asking if it was not beautiful. He seemed 
to be convinced that few landscapes could be more fair. 
We talked of America, and we talked of Ireland, and 
we talked of the master's own trials and troubles. He 
complained resignedly of the monotony of his work, 
of the pay, which was only about j[6o a year, and of 
his having no associates but his few books. One of 
these books which had recently come into his posses- 
sion was a cheap reprint of Bacon's " Essays," and he 
was much impressed with the wisdom of the old phi- 
losopher and his quaint but forcible expression. 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 229 

He had begun teaching when he was eighteen, and 
had moved about here and there through the country, 
teaching ever since. The buildings he had taught in 
varied. Some were far better than this at Luckawn, 
and he mentioned one fine enough to cost ^200. On 
the other hand, in his earlier experiences, he had been 
much worse provided for, especially those times when 
he had taught a "hedge" school — that is, had boarded 
around at the cottages, and made the kitchen of what- 
ever house he happened to be living in serve for a 
schoolroom. 

He was not wholly correct in his use of the term 
" hedge school." The real article dates back to the 
days of William of Orange, who, having found the 
Catholics in Ireland entirely on the Stuart side, was 
moved by the rancor of this fact, and zeal for his own 
religion, to make Ireland Protestant by penal laws. 
Among other provisions these laws excluded the 
Catholics from the army and navy, the magistracy, 
the bar, and the grand juries. They could not be 
sheriffs or gamekeepers or constables, and were for- 
bidden to own arms. They could not possess a horse 
worth more than ^^5, and any Protestant tendering 
that sum could compel his Catholic neighbor to sell his 
steed. Worst of all, no education whatever was allowed 
to Catholics. A Catholic could not go to the univer- 
sity, he could not be the guardian of a child, or keep 



230 The Isle of the Shamrock 

a school, or send his children to be educated abroad. 
The list of partisan and oppressive laws was a long 
and shameful one, and it was all too rigorously en- 
forced, but the country clung to its prescribed faith 
nevertheless. To escape the ignorance to which the 
people were condemned, the priests established what 
were known as hedge schools, and taught the children 
in secret by the roadsides, on the hilltops, and behind 
stone walls and hedgerows. The necessity for secrecy 
is long past, but there have been many schools in 
the nineteenth century existing under such untoward 
circumstances that the term " hedge school " could 
hardly be considered a misnomer. Still, it commonly 
means, as used now, any school taught in a very rude 
place never intended or prepared for the purpose. 

After my evening walk with the Luckawn school- 
master, the only time I saw him was several days later, 
when I called one afternoon at the schoolhouse. Les- 
sons were over, and the master was marking in the 
scholars' books their tasks for the morrow. That 
finished, he told them to " Begone ! " 

It was raining, and the boys put on their caps and 
buttoned their tattered coats closer, and the girls pulled 
their faded shawls over their heads. Then they all ran 
out into the storm with whoops of rejoicing. The 
master gave me the one chair. On his desk lay a 
paper printed in Irish. "Ah," he remarked, picking 




'J 



ill 

I 
h 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 231 

it up, " that is as easy to me as EngHsh," and he read 
a half-column aloud, in proof of his assertion. He 
sometimes wrote for the paper himself, both prose and 
poetry, he confided, taking a tin snuff-box from his 
pocket and indulging in a generous pinch ; and he 
asked what I thought of blank verse, double rhymes, 
etc. 

At present he was composing a speech and a long 
poem, with the intention of journeying to Dublin a 
month or two later to recite them at the Annual Irish 
Literary Festival. Perhaps I would like to hear them. 
He was evidently much pleased when I affirmed that I 
would, and said that to rehearse them before a stranger 
would help give him courage for the great occasion to 
come. He cleared his throat and adjusted a red hand- 
kerchief in the outer breast pocket of his overcoat so 
that the corner showed ; he felt of his necktie, and he 
pulled his spectacles down on his nose from where they 
had been reposing amid the ruffled hair on the top of 
his head. Then a doubt occurred to him. " What do 
you think ? " he inquired, " would it be better to wear 
or not to wear specs ? " 

I expressed the opinion that it would be all right 
either way, and he said personally he preferred to wear 
them. He was not used to speaking in public, and 
through his "specs" he saw the audience more dimly 
and was less timid; but he believed the impression 



232 The Isle of the Shamrock 

on his hearers was better with them off. The latter 
thought was conclusive, and he laid them on his desk. 
Then he drew himself together and began. His voice 
changed with the changing sentiments of the words, 
but his prevailing tones were gentle and melancholy. 
In the attitude assumed at the start he stood looking 
straight ahead, with hands interlocked and at rest before 
him. Gestures, however, soon began to come thick 
and fast, that which recurred most frequently consisting 
in clasping one or both hands to his heart. 

The speech was on the revival of the Irish language, 
the poem a general glorification of Erin. At least, so 
the master described them. I had no other clew, for 
they were in the ancient Gaelic. At the close of each 
peroration he inquired with concern. Was it slow 
enough, was I pleased with the sound of it, and could 
I tell just how long it had taken by my watch. 

When I left the schoolhouse a little later I bade the 
schoolmaster a final good-by, and the next morning I 
resumed my journey — but I never shall forget him. 
He was a simple and earnest soul, mistaken perhaps in 
his conception of the necessity of sternness and violence 
in teaching, yet at heart sound. It is not, however, 
so much the teacher that I recall as the literary enthu- 
siast and scholar rehearsing his Irish speech and poem 
in the dusk of his old battered schoolroom. He made 
a pathetic figure — tall and hollow-chested, his shabby 



A Bogland Schoolmaster 



^33 



clothes hanging limply about him, and in his eyes a 
vague far-away look, showing that in spirit he was de- 
claiming before the Dublin audience. After all, the 
golden glow of hope and aspiration can shine amid 
the boglands just as brightly as anywhere else in the 
world. 



'\> 




XII 

THE giant's causeway 



^ I ^HE most primitive elec- 
i trie road in existence is 
-*~ probably an eight-mile 
line in the north of Ireland, 
connecting Port Rush with the 
■r^.^ Giant's Causeway. At all events, 
^ s I have never met with anything 
of the sort slower or more 
clumsy. Along one side of the 
track runs a continuous iron rail 
about two feet above the ground, 
from which, by means of contact 
with brushes rubbing its surface, 
ij the electric current is conveyed 
to the machinery of the cars. 
4 The tramway company claim 
that this exposed rail is harm- 
less, yet warnings are posted not to touch it, and 
the local inhabitants declare that it is the cause of 
numerous fatalities to man and beast, and that the 

234 




WiJ,i/.aytii ii I'll''!' 




A Gatherer of Winkles and Limpets 



The Giant's Causeway 235 

danger is serious and ever present. The truth of such 
stories is denied by the railway officials, who say the 
fatalities are due to something besides electricity. 
Their explanation is that the natives along the route 
are in the habit of bringing out their sick farm animals, 
when hope of recovery is past, and leaning them 
against the electric rail, intending to have the creatures 
die in that position, and give their owners a plausible 
claim to damages. Whatever the facts, the device 
looked crude and awkward enough to be capable of 
all the mischief attributed to it. 

The tramway trip is a very pleasant one in fine 
weather. For a large part of the distance the sea is in 
sight, and you get glimpses of many great chalk cliffs 
fronting the ocean. These are curiously worn by the 
waves, and among the rest of Neptune's fantastic carv- 
ings, is the profile of a gigantic man's head wrought on 
a mighty buttress of the coast, and including the cliff's 
full height. There are the forehead, nose, eye, and a 
laughing mouth, astonishingly perfect, while the sea 
foaming at the neck of the vast head is very like the 
frill of an old-fashioned shirt bosom. 

Another striking object on the way is the extensive 
ruin of Dunluce Castle perched high on a rugged 
promontory of black basalt. Dunluce figures in the 
old Irish wars, and has been made the scene of a 
romantic novel ; but the incident in its history which 



236 The Isle of the Shamrock 

gave the ruin most interest to me was the story of 
the tragic fall of a portion of its walls in 1639, carrying 
eight servants over the precipice to their death. I 
fancied I could see the exact part of the castle where 
this casualty had occurred, and discern the scar left 
on the cliffs by the slipping away of a huge mass 
of the rock underlying the ancient outlines of the 
building. 

The Causeway is not far from the end of the tram- 
route ; yet on a hilltop directly in the path thither 
stands Mary Jane Kane's Royal Hotel, by far the 
most conspicuous feature of the landscape. The posi- 
tion of the hotel seemed to thrust on me the duty of 
engaging lodging there before I went farther. This I 
did, and found the hostelry a very comfortable one, 
though the " Royal " portion of its name was not as 
realistically descriptive of it as the " Mary Jane Kane" 
part. Indeed, grandiloquent titles are favorites among 
the Irish, and " Royal " Hotels and " Palace " Hotels 
are as likely as not to prove the opposite. 

To get to the Causeway I had to descend a long, 
steep slope at the back of the hotel, and follow the 
shore half a mile eastward. On the way I loitered 
along the beach, and stopped to watch some boys with 
forks getting kelp from among the rounded, water- 
worn boulders that strewed the shore. They 
gathered the wet, slippery seaweed into several great 



The Giant's Causeway 237 

heaps, and presently loaded it on a heavy farm cart 
and drove off up the steep incline. 

Then I noticed two women picking about among 
the black rocks well out toward the sea. One was 
elderly, and the other young, and both were bareheaded, 
barefooted, and tattered. 1 was curious to know what 
they were doing, but at my approach they desisted 
from their work, and the elder of the two sat down 
and did her best to look melancholy. The other 
promptly addressed me, and said her companion, or, 
to use her words, " that woman," was her mother, a 
widow, poor, and in trouble, and all that sort of thing. 
They had come down to the shore this morning to 
get dulse, periwinkles, and limpets, in part for their 
own eating, and in part to sell. Some small coins 
from my purse assuaged the widow's sorrows for the 
time being, and cheered the daughter, and the two 
resumed their search for humble treasures among the 
pools and boulders. 

When I at length neared the Causeway I found my 
path intercepted by a high iron fence, and I could go 
no farther save by paying sixpence. I produced the 
requisite coin, passed through a turnstile, and had the 
famous specimen of Nature's handiwork immediately 
before me. After all, the Causeway in itself was in 
no wise striking or imposing — just a low rock pier 
running out seaward for about two hundred yards, and 



238 The Isle of the Shamrock 

descending gradually till it sank below the waves. 
The formation, however, made it strangely impressive 
and interesting, for it is composed of some forty thou- 
sand great, upright, stone columns, averaging from 
fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. An odd charac- 
teristic of the pillars is that they are in joints from 
one to two feet in length, compactly fitted together, 
the upper end slightly concave, the lower slightly con- 
vex. They are mostly five, six, or seven-sided, but 
occasionally you find those with four or eight sides, 
while a very few are nine-sided, and a single one occurs 
which is triangular. The cracks between are always 
distinct, though the separation is so slight as to be 
almost non-existent. Taken as a whole, the make-up 
of the Causeway, in its dissimilarity to the usual 
shapelessness of rock formations, is very suggestive 
of a Titanic piece of mechanical construction. You 
can easily fancy that it is the work of an actual flesh- 
and-blood giant of the past, as the legend states. This 
personage. Fin MacCoul by name, was the champion 
warrior of all Ireland, and he was naturally much dis- 
turbed to learn that a certain Scotch giant, safe across 
the channel, was given to boasting he would swim 
over and give Fin a drubbing if it were not for wet- 
ting himself. Fin could not abide such talk, and he 
fell to and built a road of stone straight across the 
channel, that the braggart might have no further excuse 



The Giant's Causeway 239 

for not coming over to make good his boasts. A 
fight ensued, and Fin was of course the victor. One 
would have thought that his Causeway, made of this 
almost indestructible basalt, might have withstood the 
ocean storms, and lasted entire to this day, but the 
fragments remaining are still sufficient to give color to 
the legend. 

Another story of Fin MacCoul, which seems to me 
particularly entertaining, relates that while he and his 
gigantic relatives were working at the Causeway, he 
took a notion to go home and see how his wife, 
Oonagh, got on in his absence. But concern for his 
wife was not his only reason for this visit. It seems 
there was one giant in the world of whom Fin was 
afraid. His name was Cucullin, and such was his 
strength that the stamp of his foot, when vexed, 
shook the country for miles around. His fame had 
spread far and wide, and it was said that nothing in 
the form of a man had any chance in a fight with him. 
It was also common report that by one blow of his 
fist he had flattened a thunderbolt, and this thunder- 
bolt, shaped like a pancake, he carried around with 
him in his pocket to show to his enemies when they 
were about to fight him. He had given every giant in 
Ireland, excepting Fin MacCoul, a considerable beating, 
and he swore he would never rest night or day, winter 
or summer, till he could serve Fin with the same sauce. 



240 The Isle of the Shamrock 

Fin had hitherto kept dodging about from place to 
place, as often as he got word that Cucullin was on 
his scent, so that no encounter had occurred ; and it 
was chiefly the rumor that Cucullin was coming to the 
Causeway to have a trial of strength with him, which 
resulted in his being seized with a very warm and 
sudden fit of affection for his wife. He only paused 
to pull up a fir tree and lop off the roots and branches 
to make himself a walking-stick, and then set out for 
his home on the top of Knockmany Hill. 

There he spent two or three happy days with 
Oonagh, but the dread of Cucullin grew on him until 
his wife could not help perceiving that something lay 
on his mind, which he was keeping altogether to him- 
self Finally, he confessed his trouble, and added 
that he was assured Cucullin would shortly follow 
him from the Causeway to his home. 

"Well," said Oonagh, "don't be cast down; depend 
on me ; " and she hastened to send around to the 
neighbors, and borrow a score or so of iron griddles. 
These she kneaded into the hearts of as many cakes 
of bread, baked the cakes on the fire, and set them 
aside afterward in the cupboard. 

About two o'clock the next day, Cucullin was seen 
coming across the valley, and Oonagh immediately 
got out the household cradle, and had Fin lie down in 
it, and cover himself up with the clothes. "You 



The Giant's Causeway 241 

must pass for your own child," she told him ; " so 
just you lie there snug, and say nothing, but be 
guided by me." 

She had hardly finished tucking Fin in the cradle 
when Cucullin walked in. " God save all here ! " said 
he. " Is this where the great Fin MacCoul lives ? " 

" Indeed it is," Oonagh replied. " God save you 
kindly — won't you be sitting ? " 

" Thank you, ma'am," said he, taking a chair. 
" You're Mrs. MacCoul, I suppose ? " 

" I am," was the response ; " and I have no reason, 
I hope, to be ashamed of my husband." 

" No," returned the other ; " he has the name of 
being the strongest and bravest man in Ireland ; but 
for all that, there's a man not far from here that's 
very desirous of taking a shake with him. Is he 
at home ? " 

" Why, then, no," she declared ; " and if ever a 
man left his home in a fury, he did. It appears that 
someone told him of a big basthoon of a giant called 
Cucullin being down at the Causeway to look for him, 
and so he set out to try if he could catch him. Troth, 
I hope, for the poor giant's sake, he won't meet him, 
for, if he does. Fin will make paste of him." 

" Aha ! " exclaimed the visitor, " I am Cucullin, 
and I have been seeking Fin these twelve months." 

" Did you ever see Fin ? " inquired Oonagh. 



242 The Isle of the Shamrock 

"No." 

"I thought so, I judged as much; and if you take 
my advice, you'll pray night and day that you never 
may see him ; for I tell you, it will be a black day for 
you when you do. But might I ask you to favor me 
with a little help, seeing as Fin's not here. You see, 
after this long stretch of dry weather we've had, we're 
badly off for want of water. Now, Fin says there's a 
fine spring-well somewhere under the crag just down 
the hill, and it was his intention to pull the rock 
asunder and find it ; but when he heard of you, he 
left the place in such a fury he never thought of the 
water I'm needing, and if you would be so good as to 
do the job, I'd feel it a great kindness." 

This request was a startler to Cucullin, but he 
arose and went with Oonagh to see the place, and 
after looking at it for some time, he pulled the middle 
finger of his right hand until it cracked nine times. 
Then he stooped, and tore a cleft about four hundred 
feet deep and a quarter of a mile in length, which has 
since been named Lumford's Glen. 

The sound of rending rocks came to the ears of 
Fin, lying in his cradle, and made the perspiration 
start from every pore of his body ; but Oonagh still 
kept up courage, depending on her woman's wit to 
carry her through. 

" You'll now come in," said she to Cucullin, " and 



The Giant's Causeway 243 

eat a bit of such humble fare as we can give you. 
Even if you and Fin are enemies, I am sure he would 
have me treat you hospitably." 

Cucullin entered the house again, and she placed 
before him half a dozen of the special cakes she had 
baked, together with a firkin or two of butter, a side 
of boiled bacon, and a stack of cabbage. 

The giant put one of the cakes in his mouth, and 
took a huge bite out of it ; and, of course, his teeth, 
much to their detriment, struck the gridiron. " Blood 
and thunder ! " he cried, " what kind of bread is this 
you gave me ? " 

" Why," replied Oonagh, calmly, "that's Fin's bread 
— the only bread he ever eats when he's at home ; 
but, indeed, I forgot to tell you that nobody can eat 
it but himself, and that child in the cradle there. I 
thought, however, as you were reported to be rather a 
stout fellow of your size, you might be able to manage 
it, and I did not wish to affront a man who thinks 
himself able to fight Fin. Here's another cake that's 
maybe a bit softer." 

Cucullin took the second cake, and nibbled at the 
edges. It seemed to be all right, and he was hungry. 
So he bit vigorously into the middle, and met with 
the same painful surprise as before. It made him 
exclaim loudly and wrathfully. 

" Well," commented Oonagh, " if you're not able 



244 T^^ ^^^^ °^ ^^^ Shamrock 

to eat the bread, say so quietly, and not be wakening 
the child." 

At this juncture. Fin gave a skirl that made the 
giant visitor jump, coming, as it did, from the infant 
Fin was represented to be. 

" Arrah, now," said Oonagh, "the boy's hungry;" 
and she went over and put into his hand a cake which 
looked like those she had set before Cucullin, but 
which lacked the griddle. It soon disappeared, much 
to Cucullin's astonishment, who secretly thanked his 
stars that he had missed meeting the father of a 
child who could eat such bread as that. 

" I'd like to take a glimpse at the lad in the cradle 
there," said Cucullin to Oonagh; "for I can tell you 
that the infant who can manage the like of that nutri- 
ment is no joke to look at, or to feed of a scarce 
summer ; and do you mind if I just take a feel at his 
teeth before I go ? " 

" With all the pleasure in life," Oonagh responded ; 
" only, as the best of them are far back in his head, 
'twould be well to put you fingers a good ways in." 

This was Fin's opportunity, and no sooner were 
the fingers of Cucullin's right hand in his mouth than 
he bit off the middle one, on which, in some occult 
way, his enemy was wholly dependent for his strength. 
Then Fin leaped from his cradle, and Cucullin soon 
lay before him a corpse. 




The Kitchen Dresser 



The Giant's Causeway 245 

The moral of this story, in its Irish telling, is that, 
"the women, if they bring us into many an unpleasant 
scrape, can sometimes succeed in getting us out of 
others that are as bad." 

At the time of my visit to the Causeway, sea pinks 
were blossoming in the crevices of the pillars, and 
where it joined the mainland was turf sprinkled with 
daisies and primroses. There were lesser piers in 
the neighborhood, and on one of these was a group 
of columns which formed a chair, mainly used by 
sentimental maidens for wishing purposes. Every 
distinctive feature of the neighborhood had a name, 
and this nearly always was connected with the giant — 
as the giant's organ, chimneys, spectacles, pulpit, etc. 
But some of the islets offshore had names wholly 
their own, and their own legends, likewise — Sheep 
Island, for instance — whereon it is said just twelve 
sheep can be pastured. If there is one more than 
that number, they exhaust the feed and starve ; if one 
less, they die from overeating. 

Many tourists were at the Causeway, strolling about, 
and sitting here and there among the columns. The 
waves constantly boomed and crashed along the shore 
on either hand, and out in the bay several cockleshell 
boats with their sightseers were tossing, now rising on 
the swells, now sinking out of sight, as if to be en- 
gulfed. These boats came from a cove near the hotel, 



246 The Isle of the Shamrock 

and the passengers, after obtaining a sea view of the 
lofty coast cliffs, were landed at the Causeway. One 
load disembarked while I was there. The waves ran 
high, and dashed at frequent intervals far over the 
jagged rocks. The two rowers backed cautiously 
toward the Causeway, awaited a favorable oppor- 
tunity, and then one of them leaped ashore. But a 
wave came, and the other rower had to pull off, while 
his fellow ran up the rocks to escape the foaming out- 
clutch of the breaker. Again the boat backed, and 
with the aid of the man on shore the three passen- 
gers, two of them ladies, were hastily jumped from 
the violently heaving craft and hurried from the wet 
lower rocks to safety farther up. 

Within a mile of the Causeway three or four enor- 
mous pillared promontories jut out into the ocean, and 
their height and blackness and castellated form make 
the scenery very wild and majestic. The likeness of 
the cliffs to human masonry is in certain places so 
wonderfully close that one is quite prepared to learn 
that this similitude led astray here a warship of the 
ill-fated Spanish Armada. The captain mistook a 
group of shattered columns on a height for the pin- 
nacles of Dunluce Castle, and, planning his course 
accordingly, his ship went ashore. Four only of the 
crew escaped, and 250 Spanish sailors lie drowned in 
the little creek beside the Causeway. In commemo- 



The Giant's Causeway 247 

ration of this disaster the bay is named Port-na- 
Spania. 

When I left the shore it was to continue east- 
ward by a narrow, ascending path dug in the face of a 
steep slope. In places the path encountered slides of 
loose stones, or was hollowed out of the volcanic crags, 
and portions of it overhung such dizzy depths that 
signs had been put up to warn pedestrians of danger. 
At the worst points a wire cable was fastened along 
the wall for the explorer to grasp. The scenery 
among these high precipices was on a huge scale, and 
stirred the imagination much more powerfully than 
the view from the Causeway. Above were the but- 
tresses of gray columns; down below, the sea, assault- 
ing in vain the cliffs' hard, black foundations that had 
been fused by enormous heat into an adamant defying 
destruction. 

But as soon as I attained the summit of the 
heights the aspect of nature underwent an entire 
change. The landscape became wholly tranquil and 
pastoral, and round about were cultivated farmlands, 
sweeping away in gentle undulations as far as the eye 
could reach. Underneath the soil, however, was the 
basalt which forms the Causeway. It outcrops for a 
long distance on the Irish north coast, and in the 
ancient geological era, when it was deposited, its 
burning lava overflowed twelve hundred square miles. 



248 The Isle of the Shamrock 

and buried the tract from ten to a thousand feet 
deep. 

A few days at the Causeway sufficed, and then I 
journeyed inland one Sunday afternoon to Ballymoney. 
Like most Ulster towns, Ballymoney has a large 
Scotch population, which, I suppose, accounted for its 
Sabbath air of quiet ; for the Scotch observe the day 
much more soberly and religiously than the Irish. 
At the little hotel where I stopped in quest of lodg- 
ing, the parlor was occupied by a gray-bearded man 
and a sharp-featured old woman. The former sat by 
the fire with one eye to a hand-glass, reading a paper. 
The latter was at the table, leaning over a great family 
Bible outspread before her. My impression had been 
that family Bibles were for ornamenting the best room, 
rather than for reading ; but this one showed the 
marks of being much used. I asked if I could get 
a room for the night. 

"Ye can if ye are ceevil," replied the woman, look- 
ing at me over her spectacles. 

I promised to be that, and she agreed to take me 
in, though not without some preliminary questioning 
about my business, to satisfy herself that I was no 
tramp or desperado. This matter being settled, I 
went for a walk, and did not return till toward even- 
ing. The landlady was then hustling around getting 
my supper ; but the gray-haired man still sat by the 



The Giant's Causeway 249 

fire, with one eye applied assiduously to the hand- 
glass. 

After I had eaten and a youthful maid had carried 
away the dishes, I drew my chair up to the fireplace, 
and the landlady brought me a pair of ragged, worsted 
slippers. She insisted, in her roughly-kind Scotch 
way, that I should take off my shoes, put on the 
slippers, and make myself comfortable. That attended 
to, she sat down, and we began a conversation which 
soon resulted in rousing the man with the hand-glass 
to take part. It seemed that he was a boarder, an 
Irish Protestant, and I was particularly interested in 
his comments on the relations of the religious sects 
in Ireland, for he spoke intelligently, without bitter- 
ness or intolerance. I would not vouch for all his 
theories, yet in large part they agreed with my own 
conclusions, drawn from what I had observed in my 
travels. 

He said that the Catholics and Protestants in the 
north, while not warm friends, got along together 
very peaceably of recent years. You would rarely 
hear of serious outbreaks, or any marked display of ill- 
will. When there was trouble it was due to the roughs 
of either party, not to the rank and file. Drunkenness 
was the most common cause of belligerency. The 
truth of a man's particular form of religion never came 
home to him so strongly as it did when he was intoxi- 



250 The Isle of the Shamrock 

cated, and he would just as soon prove his loyalty to 
his own faith and his abhorrence of others' errors with 
blows as not. Of the feeling that exists among the 
ruder elements of society one obtains an inkling by 
studying the scribblings in the railway carriages. The 
Pope gets a curious intermingling of curses and 
blessings in these shaky pencillings, and the name 
of King William is visited with like adoration and 
obloquy. 

Intermarriage between the Scotch and Irish was for- 
merly not infrequent ; but the priests of late years will 
not allow the members of their flocks to go astray in 
that way. As a rule, Protestants trade with Protestants 
at the town shops, and Catholics with Catholics ; yet 
this is the natural drift of like to like, and there is 
little religious significance in the fact. The drinking- 
places are generally in the hands of the Catholics ; but 
otherwise the Protestants control nearly all the larger 
business interests. Prosperity inclines more toward 
the latter than toward the former, and the Catholics 
all over Ireland represent in the main the poorer and 
more ignorant classes. The Irish are as quick-witted 
and as capable as any race ; but they are in the power 
of the priests, and their religion seems to narrow rather 
than broaden their intelligence. In the Protestant 
churches thought is stimulated, and discussion and 
disagreement are always rife. There is more harmony 



The Giant's Causeway 251 

in the Catholic churches, but it proceeds from intel- 
lectual stagnation. 

In education, even where the natural advantages are 
the same, the Catholic schools are inferior. The repu- 
tation of some of the private schools at monasteries 
and convents is excellent, but the public schools under 
Catholic auspices are rarely as well taught or have as 
good books as those of the Protestants. 

It is the misfortune of the Irish to be much addicted 
to the drink habit ; and while the attitude of the Church 
is less favorable to the liquor interests than it once was, 
its efforts for temperance are scattering and not often 
very strenuous. This is to be expected where nearly 
all the clergy are themselves drinkers, and very many 
of them are the sons of liquor-dealers. Indeed, it is 
something of a custom among Catholic dram-sellers, 
where there are a number of sons in a family, to edu- 
cate one of them for the priesthood. Drinking among 
women is believed to be increasing. They do not 
often go openly to the saloons, but buy their liquor at 
the groceries, and consume it at home. 

A peasant with ambition to gain wealth likes nothing 
better, after getting a little capital by scrimping and 
saving, than to start a small shop. In addition to 
buying and selling, he makes small loans, and charges 
a high rate of interest both on money lent and on 
unpaid bills. His patrons are improvident enough 



252 The Isle of the Shamrock 

not to mind the per cent charged if they get credit for 
present needs. They are optimistic, and have no 
doubt of their ability to pay later. The racial opti- 
mism finds another illustration in the freedom with 
which the farmers go on each others' notes. The 
business relations of neighbors become so entangled 
that when one fails it means the ruin of several. The 
average native's lack of judiciousness is distinctly 
shown when you ask his opinion about the weather 
prospects, or inquire the distance to some place to 
which you are travelling. He nearly always encour- 
ages you with cheerful prophecies as to the weather, 
and diminishes the miles that lie before you amazingly. 
This is a pleasant sort of failing, but such mental 
aberration does not make for success and thrift. 

Yet the condition of Ireland has been improving for 
years past. The law-makers have studied the country 
with honest intent to learn its real needs and apply 
remedies, and the people themselves have been gradu- 
ally improving in agriculture, and are learning to adapt 
themselves to the needs of modern commerce. In 
1 841 the island had a population of eight millions. 
Now, owing to the immense outflow of emigrants, there 
are not much more than half that number. The decline 
is not due to English oppression, but has occurred be- 
cause the people have been almost wholly dependent 
on the soil, because farms were small, the system of 



A \ : 




Spring Flowers 



The Giant's Causeway 1^2 

agriculture poor, and because it has been impossible to 
meet the competition resulting from the development 
of the new lands in North and South America and in 
Australia. The farmers, not only in Ireland, but in 
all the older countries, have seen hard times. This is 
true of England and Scotland and the continent, and, 
as well, of the longer-settled portions of America. 
Values have kept dropping both in products and in 
land. 

Ireland has never been and probably never will be a 
manufacturing country. It possesses certain large brew- 
ing and distilling interests, and some cloth mills, but 
it is handicapped by its lack of coal deposits, lack of 
capital and skilled workmen, and its tendency to tur- 
bulence. Without question it has resources yet unde- 
veloped ; nevertheless, whatever affluence it wins must 
come through farming rather than manufacturing. The 
prospect would be brighter were it not that one-seventh 
of the island's surface is covered with bogs. Their 
dampness is a potent cause of rheumatism, but they 
are not otherwise unhealthy, and exhale no miasma. 
However, no cultivation of their soil can possibly 
yield more than a scanty livelihood, and they are 
over-populated. Aside from the boglands, Irish soil 
has great natural productiveness, and the climate is so 
mild and the fertilizing rains so frequent that agriculture 
should have a future of at least moderate prosperity. 



254 The Isle of the Shamrock 

In their way, the people of Erin have a genius for 
politics — a fact perhaps more fully realized in our 
American cities than anywhere else in the world ; but 
in no other nationality do men attain position and 
power so little by solid ability and judicial poise, and 
so much by wire-pulling and imaginative fluency. A 
man with a racy tongue and a plausible way of putting 
things easily wins wide influence over the masses, and 
sways them as he wills. Under the circumstances, my 
Irish acquaintance at the Ballymoney hotel thought 
that home rule would mean chaos. One may not 
wholly agree with him in this or his other conclusions, 
but his views are certainly suggestive. 

On Monday morning I walked out into the country 
a few miles and visited a farmhouse once occupied by 
the ancestors of our American President McKinley. 
The dwelling was a humble one-story building of 
whitewashed stone, with a roof of thatch. In its far 
end were the cowsheds. Two or three great stacks 
of peat were piled in the dooryard, and the house 
interior was as primitive as these accessories. The 
kitchen, with its broad fireplace and stone floor, was in 
wild disorder. A great churn stood in the middle of 
the room, a baby was creeping about underfoot, a girl 
bending over a piggin set in a chair was washing 
dishes, and a dishevelled woman was attending a black 
pot hung over the peat fire. Pretty soon the man of 



The Giant's Causeway 255 

the house appeared and collected toll of me, explaining 
that this was customary, and that he expected to make 
a good deal of money out of the place, showing it to 
American visitors. The most interesting information 
he had to impart was that one of the ancestral Mc- 
Kinleys was " hung from the house " a hundred years 
ago. 

I started back to Ballymoney presently, and later 
the same day went on to Antrim for the special pur- 
pose of seeing the Irish Round Tower there. It 
stands in the park of a gentleman's estate, and is a 
very perfect specimen, tall and slender, and gently 
tapering upward from a basal diameter of seventeen 
feet. In 1822 lightning shattered its lofty shaft, but it 
has since been repaired, and is essentially the same as 
when it was first built. It reaches far above the tree- 
tops ; for the apex of the conical roof by which it is 
crowned is ninety feet above the greensward at the foot 
of the column. A number of low windows occur at 
intervals all the way up, and at the very top are four, 
one looking toward each point of the compass. The 
only entrance is a door about ten feet from the ground, 
and as the wall below is perfectly blank I had no 
chance to get a glimpse inside. 

Some jackdaws were fluttering around the summit 
and in and out the vacant loopholes, and I fancied 
they might have traditions of the uses of the old tower 



256 The Isle of the Shamrock 

more authentic than any which have come down to us 
in history ; for no human being now knows surely 
what were the original aims of these curious construc- 
tions. Cut in the stone over the door is a cross en- 
closed in a circle, and at the top of the tower are the 
remains of a beam on which it seems likely a bell 
sometime swung. These things would indicate that 
the tower's later use, at least, was for Christian pur- 
poses. Indeed, the theory most generally accepted is 
that the round towers were religious in their use from 
the first. They date back nearly one thousand years, 
and have been in all cases in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of a church or monastery. Like other early 
church towers, it is assumed that they were symbols 
of dignity. That they served at the same time as 
watch towers and beacons, and were used as strong- 
holds in times of danger, seems also probable. They 
could not be burned down like the timber churches 
and wattled cabins of the early days, and it is believed 
that during sudden raids they afforded places of security 
for the ecclesiastics and to some extent for the inhab- 
itants of the country around. After the introduction 
of bells they are supposed to have been used as bell- 
towers to call students to school and the faithful to 
prayer. 

There are more than one hundred round towers in 
Ireland, about twenty of them entire, or nearly so. 



The Giant's Causeway 257 

The latter are usually not far from eighty feet high, 
and as a rule are capped by a conical roof, and divided 
into stories. Immediately beneath the roof are four 
small windows, and a single narrow aperture affords 
light for each story below. Floors of masonry yet 
exist in some of the towers, though oftener the 
floors have been of wood, and long since fallen. 
Ladders were the means of communication from story 
to story. The door was nearly always at a consider- 
able height above the ground, and here, too, a ladder 
was the only means of ascending and descending, and 
when this ladder was drawn up into the tower, the 
inmates were as snug and safe as they could desire. 

Antrim was my last stop in Ireland of any conse- 
quence, and one evening I embarked at Larne to cross 
the Irish Sea. I watched the low green hills fade in 
the steamer's wake into indistinct gray, and then went 
below to escape the cold wind that swept the decks, 
and the salt spray that now and then came spattering 
across the planking from the plunging bow. The 
tour had been replete with varied experiences, and was 
of never-failing interest ; and I carried away with me 
a most pleasing memory of warm-hearted Irish hospi- 
tality, while, in a sober way, the island's scenery had 
great charm in all its changes — from the placid, fertile 
south to the wild boglands and rude grandeur of the 
coast along the west and north. To be sure the Isle 



258 



The Isle of the Shamrock 



of the Shamrock has its drawbacks, and it does not 
wholly win a stranger's affections, yet I cannot but 
wish that its future may realize all the brightness for 
which its scattered sons and daughters hope. 




Among English Hedgerows 

By Clifton Johnson 

With an Introduction by Hamilton W. Mabie 
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Along French Byways 

By Clifton Johnson 

Uniform with "The Isle of the Shamrock" and 
♦ • Among EngHsh Hedgerows ' ' 

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*' Mr. Johnson's book is of a peculiarly winning sort. 
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